Despair Upon Impossibility
by Kitty Gets Loose
Summary: Sherlock remembers something else he managed to bury and forget. Mycroft wallows in guilt and worry. Neither is eager to put a finger on what they really want from each other, which was "begotten by despair upon impossibility". But despair and impossibility are two things the Holmes brothers are very accustomed to dealing with. Holmescest, Sibling Incest, Series Spoilers.
1. Retrogression, Metamorphosis

**Retrogression, Metamorphosis**

Retrogression. Waiting for Mummy to forgive him, as if he were a child again. How odd. He hadn't permitted himself the conscious awareness that it was an outcome he had been holding his breath for.

Mummy's pardon wasn't complete. It had waxed gradually, less turgidly, these past weeks. It wasn't fully there, but it was close. Mycroft could hear it in the warmth of her tired voice over the phone now, as she said: "Thank you for _everything_ , love. You really have done the best you could, Myc. When your father recovers from the flu – in the next two weeks, I hope – we'll go with you and Sherlock. I'm glad that you boys could see your sister today, even if we couldn't."

Now was not the moment to demand that Mummy use his name unabbreviated. He was unsure if such a moment would ever come again. At present, he would accept any affection she could offer in the form of his attenuated pet name or otherwise. So he only said softly: "Eurus looked most thoughtful and didn't pick up her violin for at least a minute when Sherlock said you both weren't there today because Daddy was unwell. I do believe she is responding better to speech now."

"That's good, Myc. Thank you again for all you've done. Is Sherlock still with you?"

"Yes, Mummy," Mycroft answered without glancing at the figure seated beside him – they'd stepped off the helicopter at Whitehall and been met by Mycroft's driver. "We're in the car. I'm dropping him off at Baker Street before I go home."

"Give him my love too," she said, before ending the call.

Passing on the message was unnecessary. In Mycroft's soundproofed-to-the-hilt Jaguar, Mummy's voice had been clear enough even sans speakerphone for Sherlock to have heard every word. Although he was giving no sign of paying a blind bit of notice, staring out the window from the moment he'd settled into the back seat, he wouldn't have missed a syllable. It was just one of the endless things Mycroft had simply internalised about his brother over the years, without giving it a thought.

So much time spent knowing, watching, learning. Building on the substantial body of unspoken knowledge sprung near-fully formed through instinct and shared blood and formative years under the same roof. Seemingly worlds apart in age, character, habits, and environments beyond the family home. But never unknown. Never. What little might not have been imprinted in Mycroft from the start of Sherlock's life, he had learnt through watching, always watching.

He'd spent so much of his life watching Sherlock that he couldn't look away now, not even if he'd wanted to.

He couldn't take his eyes off him.

But, oh, how badly he had failed him.

Once upon a time, like John Ford's Giovanni, he had thought himself a man who could brazenly declare _"I hold fate clasp'd in my fist"_ even when his acts were questionable. But as it had been with the doomed Giovanni, it hadn't been true for Mycroft Holmes, had it?

He had gambled with his brother's safety because he had believed he could control the world. Mycroft had thought he could safeguard queen and country, protect the ignorant general public from untold acts of terror, and hold criminal masterminds at bay single-handed. He'd thought he was clever enough, powerful enough, to occasionally dangle Sherlock like bait over the turbulent oceans in which Moriarties, Magnussens and East Winds glided like demon sharks. It had seemed a calculated risk worth taking. He'd been convinced that he had the power to keep his brother unharmed while tidily extracting valuable information, expertise and cooperation from those slippery demons in the deep.

Hubris.

He'd almost got Sherlock killed. _Actually_ killed. Not make-believe. More than once, at that.

Retrogression. Not just because he was waiting for Mummy's wholehearted forgiveness for carrying on Uncle Rudy's scheme to hide Eurus from her. But also because he was slipping back into the past, when as a chubby boy he'd always had his arms full of Sherlock, the little brother who adored him. So unlike Eurus who had stood apart, stared disdainfully at him, cut right through her eldest brother's adolescent nonsense with her all-seeing eyes, her all-knowing brain and her infantile lack of compassion – a deadly mixture of the worst elements. Sherlock, so different, had _loved_ him, loved Mummy and Daddy, loved Eurus in his naive way, loved Victor Trevor. Always seeking Mycroft's arms, Mycroft's wisdom, Mycroft's protection, Mycroft's genius… until Mycroft had failed repeatedly – however hard he'd racked his tremendous brain – to solve Eurus' infernal riddle.

He had never felt as stupid as when he had found himself impossibly, unbelievably, unable to crack her puzzle. He had never felt he'd let Sherlock down as much as when he had run up against the brick wall of her conundrum and failed to save Victor's life. Because Mycroft had come up short against his little sister – for pity's sake, he was eight years older than Eurus! – his brother had lost his beloved best friend. The blow had altered Sherlock irreparably. Even when he had written Victor and Eurus entirely out of his memory, he had never readily sought Mycroft out again for affection, wisdom or love, and had forever after accepted his help only under duress.

He had been perfectly right to stop looking to his elder brother as a source of unpoisoned aid. Because Mycroft had failed him again with Moriarty and Magnussen. And again, when trapped in Eurus' game at Sherrinford. He'd been about as much use as an umbrella stand to Sherlock and John Watson. He hadn't been able to stomach the notion of shooting the governor, whereas John had at least tried. Mycroft had openly quailed, then minutes later, hadn't been able to convince Sherlock, either, to shoot him instead of John, and had faced those seconds of utter horror when Sherlock had almost shot himself instead.

As he was on the theme of utter terror, he might as well dwell, too, on how thoroughly Sherlock had proven that he knew, inside and out, all of Mycroft's failings and weaknesses, when he had pushed _every single one_ of his childhood terror buttons by breaking into his house and scaring him half to death with his smoke-and-mirrors ghosts, shadows, clowns, bleeding ancestral portraits, weapons that wouldn't work, and doors that wouldn't open…

"Oh for God's sake, Mycroft, _shut up_ ," Sherlock abruptly broke in on his spiralling descent into self-pity with what sounded like a startlingly loud and vicious hiss. "Just _shut_ _up_."

He took a moment to register what Sherlock was furious about. Then, with as composed a demeanour as he could summon in front of the one family member who best knew all his tells, Mycroft pointed out calmly and reasonably: "I've been silent since Mummy ended her phone call."

The car was turning into Baker Street, drawing close to 221B. Sherlock unclasped his seat belt and scooped up his violin case with exaggerated movements, all elbows and huffiness. Mycroft knew his brother was perfectly capable – _more_ than perfectly capable – of doing everything with velvet smoothness, but it seemed that in the presence of people he implicitly trusted most (particularly John, Mrs Hudson and, of course, Mycroft), Sherlock enjoyed being flouncy and dramatic.

He was now pointing the index finger of his free hand at his own head of curls, glaring at Mycroft and saying irritably, in a biting staccato of arrhythmic emphases: "I could _hear_ you _thinking_ , Mycroft. Thinking so bloody _loudly_ , I couldn't hear _myself_ think. Such a superbly horrifying cascade of illogical thoughts piling one on top of the other that I couldn't separate one from the next, and so _loud_ and _jumbled_ – you were _assaulting_ my peripheral vision with all that endless minuscule _fidgeting_."

"I was not fidgeting," Mycroft said, less icily than he'd intended.

" _Everything_ on you was fidgeting – fingers, ears, facial muscles, fabric, even your toes encased in your ridiculously expensive Lobbs – all flinching, shuddering. _Loud_."

Mycroft didn't reply.

The car stopped in front of 221B, and Sherlock shoved open the door on his side, not bothering to wait for the driver to get out. So unlike Mycroft; he never waited. He swung his long, lean body out onto the pavement in another tetchy, all-elbows move, and bent to peer through the rear door, saying: "Mummy will come around. Eventually. She _knows_ that no one could have done better than you. _I_ know that no one could have done better. Ta, Mycroft. Thanks for the lift."

He closed the car door – not too hard, he didn't slam it, just shut it firmly before he turned his back to the car, the driver and Mycroft, and disappeared into 221B.

* * *

Metamorphosis. A boy turned dog in Sherlock's world. He had wielded the godlike powers of imposing cynanthropy upon another. But what he had done to Victor Trevor, Henry Knight had also done to his father's killer. Not so godlike, then. Rather, a weakness, a strategy for surviving the horror of irreversible loss.

What was godlike, wrathfully so, was the boy turned to bone, steeped in a cursed well no one could find for decades, lost, transformed, sacrificed to the rage of an insatiable little deity with pigtails and delicate feet of clay.

The wrathful god: a girl turned into the East Wind. Organic matter transmuted into inorganic moving matter sweeping all manner of particles with it. The East Wind, transformed into a woman forever damned with the genius of a goddess and the emotional and ethical development of a five-year-old child. An impossibility. Wind made flesh, flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood, howling out to him her plaintive song born of strings and bow, borne by the air to his eardrums. _What are little girls made of? Murder, and spice, and hearts of ice._

Myths were Mycroft's area, not Sherlock's. Not at all. Nursery rhymes too, come to think of it. His full-to-bursting head hadn't retained the useless classical tales and not-so-classical doggerels he might have learnt years ago. Until now, in the unsettling new age of AE – After Eurus – when he found himself refreshing his hole-ridden memory by thumbing through Ovid's Metamorphoses (Mycroft's copy, of course, stolen from his stuffy library) and Homer's Odyssey and Iliad (ditto), as well as a book of traditional rhymes someone or other had given Rosie. Or more accurately, given to John so he could read them to Rosie.

 _Sugar, and spice, and all things nice._

Sherlock raised an eyebrow at the sleeping child draped over his sternum while he lay on the sofa. Well, maybe not all things _nice_. Rosie was covered in an assortment of more-or-less edible matter – if he scraped off a sample and examined it, he would most likely find the matter composed of formula milk, pureed pumpkin, an ill-advised sweet Mrs Hudson hadn't been able to resist offering the child, a burped-up mixture of half-digested midday feed and fresh drool, smudges of baking flour and powdered cinnamon John had transferred to his daughter's smock after helping Mrs Hudson hoist a tray of something Sherlock had no interest in from the counter to the oven, snot and tears (originating from the child, not the tray, thank goodness), and probably more molecules of pee than he particularly liked to think might be outside a baby's diaper.

"Sorry, so sorry," John was murmuring now, hurrying in quietly to gently scoop Rosie off Sherlock's supine frame.

Sherlock shook his head to signify that it was no trouble at all.

"She needs a bath, but I'll wait for her to wake up a bit more first," John said softly, pressing a barely-there kiss to his daughter's edible-matter-covered hair. "Thanks for keeping an eye on her while I made that run to the clinic."

"Emergency sorted?"

"Yes, thanks. The locum was attending to another emergency, and Sarah was making an urgent house call, so it was down to me. Fishbone down the throat. Mr Hakim."

"Ah – the 75-year-old with the cat fetish. Please tell me he hasn't progressed to eating his pets' lunches," Sherlock remarked dryly.

"I was rather hoping _you_ would be able to deduce enough from the minute traces of seafood, catnip, fifty shades of cat hair or whatnot on my clothing to reassure _me_ of that," John shot back, equally wryly.

"Uh…" Sherlock began, crunching into a half-sitting posture to peer closely at John's oatmeal sweater. "No."

"No? No what?" John asked curiously, shifting Rosie to his shoulder as she began to fuss.

"No, John, I'm not that omniscient," Sherlock snapped softly, petulantly collapsing back onto the sofa cushions. "You'd do better asking Mr Hakim directly if he's been nicking his moggies' meals. Unless it becomes a matter of national importance, of course, in which case I shall pick his locks, invade his territory, abduct the fifty felines and secure the perimeter with mousetraps."

Rosie was fussing more aggressively now. John, soothing her with murmurs and pats, started moving towards the bathroom to wash her up, but stopped to enquire: "Didn't have time earlier to ask properly while I was rushing out the door, but I hope you found your sister well?"

"Very well, thanks for asking."

"Still not talking, though?"

"No."

"Father recovering from the flu?"

"Yup."

"Mother not caught it from him yet?"

"Nope."

"Mycroft still wallowing in whatever mud-substitute he likes languishing in?"

"Oh, yes. Very much so."

"Normal service for now in the Holmes universe, then?"

"Quite so."

John shook his head slightly with a quirk to the corners of his lips that mirrored Sherlock's ironic half-smile, before vanishing into the bathroom to give Rosie her much-needed bath.

To wash away the sugar ( **C** _12_ **H** _22_ **O** _11_ ) and spice ( **C** _9_ **H** _8_ **O** ) and all things not too nice (the **H** _2_ **NCONH** _2_ , among other stuff).

If Sherlock could confer blessings, he would shower blessings of normality upon Rosie (aside from the fact, of course, that she might very well grow up to become a bloody fantastic sharpshooter like both her mummy and daddy). Spare _this_ little girl the hellishly divine transmutation into a thing of terror. Nothing wrathfully godlike, please. If godlike she must be, please God she be benign. Rosie. Rose. Rosy… rosy fingertips… the horizon-spanning appendages of Eos, goddess of the dawn – _"When Dawn spread out her finger tips of rose"_ … Homer, The Odyssey. Eos – harmless enough? Oh dear, no – look what she did to Tithonus, poor sod. Even rosy-fingered Dawn wouldn't be safe to metamorphose into. _Just grow as nature would under normal circumstances intend you to, into a brilliant woman who will always make your father proud, please._

Fingertips of rose… something about that image… ugh, the _holes_ in his memory. Rosy fingers were so because blood flowed under their skin. Rosie the child with her little pink fingers, yes, but somewhere back in time was the vise-like grip of bloodless fingers, the relaxing grip of red-again fingers as the blood rushed back in through the capillaries… _"I won't let you go. I'll never let you go…"_

Something was dancing at the frayed edges of his memory. A thread, the merest thread slipping through the fabric away from him. If he could just grasp it before it vanished into the wrong part of the weave…

Fingers, rosy little digits… whose? Eurus'? Rosie's? No, his own. His own small fingers seeking out and clutching… soft wool, soft flesh, strong, solid bones beneath the excess skin and the grabbable folds. Good Lord. _Mycroft_.

Looking for and to Mycroft all the time – that was him, as a child, wanting, demanding, loving, as he flung himself at the one who had always seemed a towering figure to him. Even more so than Daddy and Mummy. Because Mummy was a genius, and so was Daddy in his own way, but Mycroft was _brilliant_ in a language Sherlock _understood without having to learn it_. His genius spoke to Sherlock's intellect in ways no one else's could. Victor was his sweet-natured playmate and Eurus was fey, but Sherlock's grubby little fingers were always reaching for Mycroft.

He had seemed massive, a Colossus in his abilities and strength. Yet now, Sherlock realised in a hard-factual way he never had before that Mycroft himself had been a child when Sherlock had adored him. Significantly older, to be sure, but still, he would only have been seven when Sherlock was born. He would only have been 13 when they'd lost Victor.

At first, he had cried in Mycroft's arms over and over again, cried bitterly, desperately. And Mycroft had held him and soothed him and cared for him. Then Sherlock had pulled away, devastated that even all the brilliance in Mycroft's brain couldn't bring Victor back.

And there was more… that fraying thread had a hell of a lot more to it, if he could just grasp it and trace it back to where it had slipped away from – fingers – it was down to seizing and pinning down that fleeting, barely-there image of those fingers holding him, words promising him he would never let him go… in a different time from when Eurus had lived with them… another time, another age, but still holding and being held… something fluttering there right at the edge of his mind – fingers, hands, arms, Mycroft, Mycroft… something to do with Mycroft… today, in the car, Mycroft's cascade of self-blaming thoughts, his guilt, leaping almost psychically from his head to Sherlock's, another echo of something he had forgotten from long ago…

Sherlock turned his face towards the back rest of the sofa and lay on his side with his eyes closed, thinking, trying hard to remember. He'd been lying on his side, Mycroft had been holding him, and all the thoughts were jumbled in their heads… he had erased something from his head because… not because it wasn't important, but because…

Ah.

The drugs. He had the slippery thread in clearer view and was following it better now that he could recognise its source. A fraying, iridescent thread of the countless recreational-substance-addled memories he had chosen to forget. Because each time he'd come back out of it had felt, first, like a plunge from the heavens into Hades, then a punishing spell in the underworld, then an even more painful, precarious climb back to the surface with no guarantee, like Orpheus, that he would make it back to level ground. And each time, he'd hoped to forget. But he had never really forgotten, had he?

He'd gone back again and again, remembering the bliss of the chemicals flooding his veins, opening up his imagination, closing down his heart, but choosing to bury all the other details – the pain, the indignity, the terror of descent and ascent, the grovelling, the hatred. And somehow, he had also buried along with all that the details of deeds by the one thing that had kept his head just above water and ground every time – Mycroft.

Why?

Why had he buried so much of Mycroft during those journeys to hell and back? Resentment? Shame? Surely not, when he had no trouble remembering all the other occasions when he had felt resentful of his brother or ashamed of his own behaviour towards his family and the people he cared about. What was so different about the drug-fuelled spells?

He could _see_ it, almost. _Almost._ The vision was _right there_ : Fingers, hands, arms, Mycroft holding him through the shaking, the vomiting, the rage, his brother's knuckles and fingertips bloodless and white as he held him firmly, refusing to let him run, crawl, fight his way out of his reach. Those same joints and fingers, raw with redness as the blood flowed back under the skin in the intervals of sanity, when Sherlock was calm(er), less violent, less sick. _"I won't let you go. I'll never let you go…"_

Nothing very unexpected there. Not that Sherlock had remembered that much, all these years, of Mycroft doing so much to keep him clean, keep him safe, keep him alive. He was only just now recalling these bits, fitting the images into place, plugging the holes in his memory. Yes, sort of new, all that information – _how much_ Mycroft had physically _been there_ for him – but nothing too unusual, nothing he could classify as totally unexpected.

What had he forgotten, then? What had he lost? Why?

Fingers, hands, arms, arms around him, holding him. Hands now gripping his wrists but not holding him down… gripping his wrists? But not to hold him down? For what purpose, then? Hands pushing him away. Mycroft pushing him away… why?

The lost past poured its returning images thick and fast into Sherlock's mind, until, with shocking abruptness, the memory slammed into him of the most awful moment, the lowest point when he'd lost every last shred of dignity he had. _("Sherlock, what in_ hell _do you think you're doing?")_

Coming down hard from a dodgy dose of heroin he'd told himself was just so he could think better now the summer academic term was over, then discovering that all he was thinking about was how to ease the crawling, nauseating, muscle-torturing discomfort with another hit. (He'd scored that neat little pack in return for some clever deductions and basic legwork, accurately giving the dealer details about which men his girlfriend was cheating on him with. But there wasn't much else he could offer any dealer at that point in time to score more, and at 17, with all his pocket money spent, his options were somewhat limited.) Desperation. He needed to make it all feel better. But then Mycroft was there all of a sudden (How had he known? Had Sherlock rung his number?), looking at the list Sherlock had written, probably surprised to find it ever so short.

Mycroft had hauled him out of that abandoned house, bundling him into the back seat of a sensible steel-grey Volvo sedan (his brother would only have been about 24 at the time, nowhere near as powerful or successful as he was to become in just a few years), and driving him to that small flat he used to rent in Camden. It was a warm summer night; Sherlock shivered uncontrollably. Mycroft double-parked on the street – the hour was late, all the spaces were filled. He'd then dragged Sherlock, fussing, shaking and heaving, up to the flat, and locked him in the bedroom. He'd disappeared for a while – to park the car elsewhere, or leave his number behind the windshield so the owners of the vehicles he was blocking could call him if they needed to. But he'd soon returned with water, electrolyte tablets, towels, plastic bags, pyjamas and blankets. He'd nursed him, soothed him, held him, dragged the mattress to the floor so Sherlock could rest on it without risking a tumble off the bed frame. He'd stayed with him.

Somewhere in the dead of night, struggling against the miserable sensations of sickness and rattling bones and crawling need and _want_ , but halfway clear-headed enough to think he was being oh-so fucking _clever_ , Sherlock had done it. He'd done the thing he had buried all these years, deep in a grave alongside his early memories of Redbeard and the East Wind.

 _"I could ease off it a hell of a lot better with smaller successive doses," he'd mumbled as his teeth chattered and his insides crawled, and Mycroft held him tight from behind, wet towels and just-in-case-he-pukes-again plastic bags within easy reach._

 _"Your last dose before I found you was small enough. You'll get through this," Mycroft had told him. Even then, in the drug-tinted haze, Sherlock had detected the fatigue in his brother's voice._

 _"You should've just deposited me at a hospital – they'd have weaned me off it."_

 _"Sherlock, you're 17. They would have called Mummy and Daddy, the school, and the police, even as they were treating you. I don't want you to go through that."_

 _"Then just get me a small dose. You_ do _know how to, don't you? You should. You know_ everything _, don't you, Mycroft? For fuck's sake – it hurts, it's miserable, it just hurts."_

 _"Well, it must be astonishingly bad if you're starting to pointlessly repeat yourself," Mycroft had remarked dryly, tightening his grip as another round of agony shook Sherlock to the marrow of his bones._

 _Bloodless knuckles, holding so tight. Then, by the light of the lamp, blood running under the skin again, as at last, the muscle spasms eased. And Mycroft's grip had eased too. Oh, an idea. Perhaps he could…_

 _"Mycroft," he'd murmured, turning around in his brother's arms, to whisper his name (in retrospect, his breath must have been disgustingly tinged with the odour of vomit, and his nose would have been running – not a pretty picture, undoubtedly). "My-croft."_

 _"Now what?"_

 _"Just give me the money, I'll get it myself."_

 _"Stop talking like the idiot we used to think you were, and that I'm beginning to think you are again," his brother had hissed._

 _"I could get a good gram for 70 quid. Just 70 quid. I'd ration it, in successively smaller doses–"_

 _"You're not getting a penny of my money for drugs."_

 _"I'd give you something you want in return. And I'm charging only_ £ _70 for it, quite a bargain, I'd say, for_ me _."_

 _"There's nothing you could give me that I could possibly want–"_

 _Mycroft's words had cut off abruptly when Sherlock had slipped one leg between his brother's thighs and rubbed his hip against the bulge of flesh behind that fine wool fly. Mycroft's eyes had flown wide in an instant, and as Sherlock reached down in an attempt to literally take the matter in hand, he'd reacted violently, snatching both of Sherlock's wrists up in his iron grip, separating their bodies at once, and holding Sherlock away from him._

 _"Sherlock, what in_ hell _do you think you're doing?" had been Mycroft's furious, disbelieving cry._

 _"What I'd wager a gram of heroin on that you've wanted for some time now," Sherlock had smiled arrogantly through the snot and the film of sweat over his skin, a crazed attempt at a smile halfway between frigid and winning. "You're getting some – I can tell you are – quite regularly too, but not from the one you really want it from, aren't I right, brother dear?"_

 _"You've lost your mind!" Mycroft had thundered at him, shaking his entire upper body by the wrists, shoving him further away from him without letting him go – even in his distress, he'd been careful not to give Sherlock the opportunity to run for it. His voice had been awful, so angry and bitter and loud that Sherlock thought his eardrums would burst._

 _"Have I really? Am I really wrong about what you want, My-croft?" he'd sung disdainfully._

 _Then the nausea had hit him again, and he'd twisted around, wrists still held tightly until his brother realised he was genuinely in need of the plastic bag they'd stretched over a small wastepaper basket to hold it open for easy access. Mycroft had released his wrists and let him throw up whatever his stomach wanted rid of. His face was halfway down the bag in the basket, and he was practically crying from the gagging and the vomit, as pathetic as he could be. Mycroft was rubbing his back, pressing a cool towel to the nape of his neck, soothing him, holding him, holding him carefully, a little away from him. Damn, that smarted._

 _After what felt like all his insides coming out of him, he'd slumped into the softness of the mattress on the floor, completely drained, wiped out and, rather humiliatingly, wiped up by Mycroft as if he were a baby._

 _"Have a sip of water," Mycroft's voice, more gentle than he deserved, had come softly in his ear, and his steady arms had propped Sherlock up a little so he could drink. "Another. Just one more. That's good."_

 _Mycroft had lowered him carefully to the mattress again, and drawn a blanket over him. He must have assessed that Sherlock was in no condition to bolt right then, and had gone about cleaning up a little. He'd tied up the plastic bag before replacing it with a fresh one, gathered up the towels he had used to wipe Sherlock's face and mouth, and rinsed out what he could in the bathroom before stepping out of the flat to discard the bag._

 _He'd thought, for a few endless minutes, that Mycroft would never come back. That he would call in someone else – their parents, or staff from a detox clinic, just anyone who could be trusted – to see him through this, and preferably remove him from the premises to a safe location where he would never have to set eyes on him again._

 _The time alone had seemed like hours. Looking back now, it couldn't have been more than three minutes – Mycroft wouldn't have risked leaving him for longer than that until the worst had passed. But he'd felt as if it was hours, and he would never see his brother again. He'd been wrong, of course. Mycroft had returned, sat on the floor with his back against one leg of the bare bed frame, elbows supported by his knees, his face buried in the palms of his hands._

 _Sherlock watched him in silence, the picture of despair, with a waterfall of jumbled thoughts he could practically hear running through Mycroft's head. Then the spasms had come on again, and Mycroft had raised his head to look at him, his eyes momentarily blank, as if he hadn't known what he ought to do, or if he ought to do anything. Until Sherlock had gasped: "Mycroft, please."_

 _And he'd caved, scooting over to hold Sherlock again, hold him tight, reassure him. Sherlock had buried his face in Mycroft's neck, shaking, spasming, gasping against his skin, then struggling, fighting, trying to break free to do something, anything, to end the unending discomfort. Anything. Bang his head against the floorboards, brain himself against the bed frame – it looked solid enough. Eventually, calm(er), they'd settled back into the easiest position to manage the situation, Sherlock spooned against Mycroft, his brother wrapping his arms around him, pinning his arms down, his hands over the backs of his own, knuckles and fingers and joints white or red, tightening or loosening, as the circumstances demanded. Thank the heavens that Mycroft at 24 had still been significantly physically stronger than Sherlock at 17, or the shades in Hades alone would have known how it might all have played out._

 _"You can't honestly deny that you want me," Sherlock had whispered at one point._

 _Perhaps earlier on, it might have been enough to provoke Mycroft into shoving him away again. But right there and then, Sherlock had been at his weakest, his least provocative, and his voice had – there was no getting around it – sounded downright pathetic. More importantly, Mycroft would have been damned hard put to deny that the part of his anatomy that Sherlock was currently pressing his bottom against was stiffening in a way he couldn't hide._

 _"So why don't you just go for it?" Sherlock had pressed on. "In the state I'm in, you won't even have to pay me for it. And I wouldn't object. Really."_

 _Sherlock would have guessed that if he'd been able to see Mycroft's face then, he would have seen another lightning bolt of pure anguish cross his brother's face. He didn't have to see his face, though. He could sense every chaotic, unhappy thought racing through Mycroft's head, hear every miserable note of his voice dipping lower than a cello, but in spirit more plaintive than a flute, as Mycroft had said gravely: "You'd hate me if I did. Worse, you'd hate yourself if you did. I'd never allow that to happen."_

 _"Allow me to hate myself? Or allow_ us _to happen?"_

 _"Whatever makes most sense to your drug-blasted brain right now. Take your pick."_

 _"So you do want this, deep down?" Sherlock had mumbled, getting sleepy._

 _"It's a moot point. You don't know what you're doing, or saying, and you will forget all this once you're out of this fog. It's not going to happen."_

 _"But if you do want this, and after all this, if I'm clean, will you, Mycroft?" Sherlock had been almost rambling by then, getting sleepier._

 _"You're not clean, and you won't be for a while, and everything you do will be compromised for a long time. There's no point in talking about it. Go to sleep."_

 _"But why don't you just… it would be so easy… might even take the place of all these crazy solutions I use with all their crazy percentages…"_

 _"Because I love you too much to let you, or me, do that."_

 _"I used to say that, didn't I?" Sherlock had mumbled, recalling something. "I used to say 'I love you, Mycie' all the time, didn't I?"_

 _"Yes, you did. You forgot, and you will forget again, just like you will forget all this. You'll lock it away and never look at it."_

 _"I love you, Mycie."_

 _"Go to sleep."_

 _"Can't you just give in?"_

 _"No."_

 _"Why?"_

 _"Because you mean the world to me, Sherlock. Sleep now, and forget all this."_

Sherlock's eyes flew open to the close-up view of the sofa back in Baker Street, the crumbs of scones, fragments of rosin, and light-as-air feathery-edged slivers of paper fallen from whatever sheets of meaningless nonsense he'd felt the need to rip up in a temper in the sitting room.

By heaven and hell and everything blessed and cursed, he _had_ gone to sleep that night when he was 17 and forgotten everything. Endymion, endlessly asleep in the fields, lying there unconscious of the world shifting around him, forever blind and deaf to how desperately he was loved by the immortal beings who had fallen under the spell of his beauty. No, no, he was worse than Endymion, who had been put into that state by the gods. He had done it to himself, overdosing on a lifetime of brain tricks and Sherlockian mind chemicals that had deceived only his own psyche. Nothing was beautiful about him – he was merely mortal and terribly flawed, receiving love undeserved and never knowing or remembering or caring.

So. The earth revolved around the sun; Britain had once had a prime minister named Margaret Thatcher; Victor Trevor was Redbeard; he had a sister named Eurus; Sherlock had shamelessly _propositioned_ Mycroft, trying to bargain for money for drugs in return; and Mycroft had said no, because Sherlock meant the world to him.

Metamorphosis. Transmutation. Chemistry. Or alchemy? An element he hadn't known was in the mix had made its presence known, and the compound was bursting out of the laboratory, evolving into a beast whose DNA he couldn't identify.

* * *

 **Notes:** The title of this fic is taken from Andrew Marvell's poem, "The Definition of Love". The opening lines of the poem read: "My Love is of a birth as rare/As 'tis for object strange and high:/It was begotten by despair/Upon Impossibility."

And subscripts don't work here, so I've had to use italics (against bold font for visual contrast) to represent them in the chemical formulas.


	2. Atrophy, Analysis

**Atrophy, Analysis**

Atrophy. He'd grown soft. Too much time spent watching, tapping buttons, signing orders, strategising at a distance, giving commands from behind a desk: the general who had soared through the ranks so long ago, he'd forgotten how to drive home the blade.

He had amassed influence, made himself an indispensable coordinating force with unparalleled insight, foresight and knowledge. One with the capacity to mobilise domestic and foreign security, intelligence and counter-intelligence resources in the most efficient ways. MI6, MI5 and every branch of the Home Office leaned on him to oversee the blind spots that tumbled into the gaps between them – gaps that morphed between crevice-tight spots and ravine-wide chasms. They valued him for such oversight, as well as to prevent overlapping that might compromise valuable manpower, finances and time.

Home Secretaries, Foreign Secretaries, Ministers of Defence, prime ministers and lords had learnt, long ago, that they could give any number of brilliant personnel and specialised departments the same resources they gave Mycroft Holmes. But the useful projections and life-saving outcomes squeezed out of them would be 75 percent of what he could do alone or with smaller teams in four-fifths of the time, shuffling impossible connections around in his brain until every fragment lined up to shape a picture that spoke sense. No intellect, human or artificial, had thus far matched Mycroft's preternatural talent for gazing into a whirlwind of disparate nothings and coalescing them with mystifying speed into a shape that might expose an insidious plot underway.

His genius had its limitations, of course. Even he could do nothing about lone wolves who leapt out of nowhere to savage lives and property. He wasn't omniscient. But if a suspicion was on record, if a whisper was heard, if a picture looked off on a security camera on the fringes of the kingdom, and something clearly wasn't right but no one at Scotland Yard or MI5 could pinpoint why, Mycroft would be the man to submit the reports to so he could visualise how they fitted into one frame, or ten.

Equally invaluable on the diplomatic front, he knew all the invisible loopholes and secret points of weakness. He had mastered all the subtle ways he could instigate someone to do one little thing, two little things, and something elsewhere in the world that he had foreseen would soon be in a position to threaten British stability would take a critical knock. It might be an armed force, a head of state, a seemingly minor political figure, or an entire nation, but certain of its vital structures would go tumbling down, putting it on the back foot, and somehow, the discreet undermining would appear to have come from anywhere _but_ MI6.

Every street camera and several satellites were at his disposal. Armed squads mobilised at a word from him. Ostensibly peculiar orders of his were obeyed with very little eyebrow-raising these days, because he had proven that he had abundant method to his madness. And he knew what other people in power had, in addition, learnt to think by now: _"As for that brother of his, well, the madness in_ his _method must be humoured and abetted by us closing one eye or both, because the eventual results of that other Holmes' eccentric, law-breaking investigations nearly always turn out to be worth more than whatever precious rules he's smashed along the way."_

There. There it was. That last assurance was the valuable stuff that filled out the other half of his purpose. Professional pride, his love for monarch and country, his old-fashioned patriotism – all these were driving forces. But adding ballast to the other half of the scale to keep him upright as he bore the burden was knowing that he had the power to protect his family. Especially Eurus at this time, lethal waif that she was – Ophelia in her fragility, Medea in her viciousness – poised on the edge of a blade.

Lady Smallwood had alluded to it behind the locked doors of his office an hour ago, answering the unuttered thought that had nudged insistently against his running analyses of the situation.

"Murmurings about the thirteenth protocol have reached me," she'd revealed, coolly, rearranging her outfit into its usual order after another of their mutually gratifying transactions.

"I thought they might," Mycroft had said calmly, adjusting his tie.

"A handful of voices, cautiously testing the waters for a vote to damn adherence to the convention, and make an exception in this case," she had added as she'd tilted her head first to one side, then the other, to slip the posts of her pearl studs back through her earlobes.

"Those voices aren't the ones we really need to worry about either," he'd filled in the blanks thoughtfully.

"She's killed too many people. Others with more say are still hanging back, but they will soon ask what use she is to national security now that she isn't talking, or analysing trends, or preventing bloodshed."

"Still, they can't touch her."

"Not while you're here," Lady Smallwood had stated plainly, although not unkindly. "Even after the recent debacle, you've remained more or less untouched. There _was_ talk of removing you as you were ultimately accountable for oversight of Sherrinford, but for all intents and purposes for the foreseeable future, you are irreplaceable, so your position is reasonably secure for now. No one lasts forever, though. When you do at last leave or are driven out, retire, or die – whichever comes first – there'll be no guarantees."

"I know. Thank you for thinking about this, in any case."

"You'll work something out," she'd remarked, sounding – for her – almost breezy, as she picked up her coat and strode towards the door, which he unlocked. "You always do. You or that brother of yours – you'll find a solution, one or both of you."

He needed ruthlessness now. But he was Cerberus lulled to sleep by Orpheus, Argus rendered drowsy by Hermes and slain, his hundred eyes bizarrely gathered up by Hera and set into her peacock's tail. Perhaps when he was dead, Lady Smallwood could do him the kindness of picking up where he'd left off with his millions of street-camera eyes and adding them to her figurative peacock's plumage. Perhaps her protégés could continue watching over the land in his place.

Watching, too, the other monster on his behalf. The monster who was of his flesh and blood, and whom he had failed in his own way. If he had only understood her when she was a child…

And Sherlock. Who would watch over Sherlock when he was gone? Was it ironic that Sherlock himself was the Orpheus to his Cerberus, the Hermes to his Argus? The one he could never refuse, who rendered him pliable, ready to bare his throat, eyes closed; make a target of his heart, eyes open.

The only one he wouldn't retaliate against for twisting his arm up behind his back and slamming him into a door frame at Baker Street in the heat of a narcotic high.

To his shame, all he had thought about in those moments was that it had been too many months since Sherlock had touched him physically for any reason at all.

Perhaps in that vile high, Sherlock had forgotten that Mycroft had once been a young MI6 case officer who had undergone rigorous field training. Thanks to the formidable reputation he had built up at university, and Uncle Rudy's influence, Mycroft had been earmarked from the start of his career for an administrative and supervisory role in intelligence. But to give him a first-hand feel of what went on in the frontlines, he'd had to go through the posts assigned him and learn the basics in case he found himself in a tight spot.

He had honed every offensive and defensive manoeuvre one in his position would need in the most desperate of circumstances. He still had it. Mostly. He had employed those very skills to extract Sherlock from Serbia. Yes, his silver tongue, irreproachable accent, forged documents and all the assumed confidence in the world had got him _to_ Sherlock, but he and his backup had had to cripple a good number of limbs and send bullets spiralling into skulls on the way _out_.

He hadn't quailed or gone limp then. Not for a second. It was a battlefield, and he had to protect Sherlock. The alternative did not bear thinking about – precisely because he had already thought about it in that basement cell where he had finally found him. Alive. Battered, but breathing. When at last they were alone, all that had filled his head was the intoxicating sense of his gloved fingers pushing their way into his chained-up brother's filthy curls of hair, tightening their grip in a mad cocktail of relief, sorrow, anger, resentment, possessiveness, love and desire into a fistful of locks matted with sweat, blood and grime, helplessly hearing John Ford in his mind: _"I hold fate clasp'd in my fist."_

And more darkly: _"For in my fists I bear the twists of life."_

Like a feral dog whose instinct was to devour her pups when they were threatened, he'd thought for a moment in that prison that if he failed to get Sherlock out, he would kill him in an act of mercy, arrogance, hubris. _If I can't save you… If I can't have you…_ Was that the clichéd thought tearing through Giovanni's mind as he had ripped out the heart of his sister and lover and impaled it on his dagger? " _For in my fists I bear the twists of life"…_ Annabella's gouged-out heart, trailing its twisting arteries around Giovanni's fist like snakes, twisting like Medusa's hair, curling like Sherlock's hair… Sherlock, whose burning gaze could turn Mycroft to soft stone, whose penetrating voice could drag him back to life.

 _Just shut up._

His thoughts were all tangled up like Sherlock had accused them of being in the car two days ago. How silly, when it was Sherlock whose thoughts leaned towards delightful jumbling. Of course, chaos suited his younger brother all through the chase before he ordered it into perfect clarity in the denouement; it didn't befit Mycroft, who had begun with order but was descending into chaos. Primodial Chaos, when _"nulli sua forma manebat/obstabatque aliis aliud, quia corpore in uno/frigida pugnabant calidis, umentia siccis/mollia cum duris, sine pondere, habentia pondus"_.

 _Shut up, Mycroft. Shut up…_

As if Sherlock was reading his mind again – from halfway across the city this time – and had decided to jump in to force his hurtling thoughts to a halt, Mycroft's phone interrupted him with an alert to a text.

 **Sherlock  
** _Dinner at Marcini's, 8pm?_

Mycroft frowned. Sherlock _never_ asked him out without a motive. He chose to probe the anomaly with a light jibe:

 **M  
** _You mean the classier of your two favourite Italian establishments for romantic suppers with John?_

 **Sherlock  
** _Fire your surveillance teams. Their intel is dismal._

 **M  
** _Surely it's time you made an honest man of Dr Watson._

 **Sherlock  
** _John says to tell you he'd rather snog Mrs Hudson. Mrs H says she refuses to come between a bickering married couple. Is 8 all right for you? Just you and me._

 **M  
** _You and your Baker Street coterie are conveying distinctly mixed signals. Would you care to unmix them?_

 **Sherlock  
** _Mrs H adds with utter insincerity that she's terribly flattered by John's offer but she'll pass. Rosie is wailing. See you there at 8._

 **M  
** _I haven't said yes._

 **Sherlock  
** _You haven't said no. It's a date._

Mycroft stared at the messages _far_ longer than was necessary for a man of his intelligence and education levels. Atrophy. In the brain too, it seemed. What the devil did Sherlock want now? Mycroft hadn't the foggiest idea.

* * *

Analysis. To test for the presence of a substance, he had to know its properties. Which he did (more or less).

But he was uncertain how those properties would manifest themselves in the increasingly complex matter Mycroft had become over the years, as well as the exponentially more complicated thing that was Mycroft added to Sherlock.

Some conditions under which this qualitative analysis would be conducted were beyond his control. However, he could manipulate certain factors for more accuracy.

Which was why he sat in his cab just off the King's Road and watched until Mycroft's car stopped outside Marcini's. His brother emerged, armed with his umbrella and armoured in one of the charcoal-hued suits he favoured for autumn (Sherlock knew that suit – a bespoke one that appeared to be a solid dark gray from a distance, but proved at closer range to be a plaid subtly shot through with moss-green). He waited for Mycroft to enter the restaurant, gave him two minutes in there for his eyes to adjust to the lighting, then instructed the cabbie to drive up the road too and drop him off.

Mycroft was already seated, looking at the menu, a glass of still water before him, when he approached the table. It was Sherlock's usual spot – the one in the private corner that Dominic Marcini always did his best to give him.

"See anything you fancy?" Sherlock asked before coming to a complete stop across from Mycroft.

His brother raised his head (purely out of manners, to acknowledge his presence – it wasn't as if he wouldn't have known the second he walked in the door; neither of them ever really had to look straight at the other to see him.)

Slight pupil dilation. Only minimally more than would occur at sight of anyone else in the family he had an appointment with. He would measure nearly the same infinitesimal flicker in those irises whether it was Mummy, Daddy or even a non-relative Mycroft had no excessive objection to – like John or Lestrade – showing up for an expected meeting with him.

 _Inconclusive._

"I seem to remember enjoying the pappardelle with Parma ham and porcini in cream sauce here last year," Mycroft said with one of his neutral social smiles, which he often used when running an initial assessment of the layers that might lie beneath the surface of an innocuous setting.

"Can't go wrong with that," Sherlock agreed, unwinding his scarf as he accepted with a nod the waiter's offer of still water and dismissed him for the time being by declining his help with his outerwear.

Sherlock favoured this table in the corner because it had a coat stand beside it, near the wall – it saved him and his dining companions from checking their coats in at the cloakroom and running the risk of their being tampered with while out of sight. As he slipped off his coat now and draped it over the stand along with his scarf, he needed only the briefest glance at his brother to register the appreciable increase in Mycroft's pupil dilation.

 _Interest, attraction. Observed._

He'd chosen this suit and shirt to test his assumption. The outfit was nine years old, but so well made and rarely worn that it still looked perfect. The items were among several Mycroft had had tailored for Sherlock when he was starting to get his life in order and had begun sniffing around Lestrade's cases. He'd been scrawny as an imp back then, in his early twenties, still on shaky ground with both his narcotic use and the Metropolitan Police.

Which meant that the claret silk shirt and the deep-gray wool-silk jacket and trousers hugged the lines of his body more closely than anything he regularly wore these days. They weren't _tight_ , of course – Sherlock had absolutely no intention of appearing _vulgar_ – but he knew they showed him off to good effect. (Before he'd left the flat, Mrs Hudson had gone "Oooh, _Sherlock_!" and trailed him like a puppy all the way from the sitting room to the hallway downstairs with an absurdly ditzy look on her face; while John, brow furrowed in puzzlement, had stammered at sight of his ensemble while feeding Rosie: "W-wait a minute – just _who_ did you say you were meeting tonight?". Sherlock _hadn't_ , in fact, said. So no one was the wiser.)

And Mycroft was eating him up with his eyes, irises practically swallowed by the dark depths behind them when Sherlock undid his jacket to sit down, exposing more of the form-fitting claret shirt, top button undone.

 _Lust, desire. Noted._

"They do a good sirloin with wine and chocolate sauce," Sherlock murmured at the printed menu before making a show of glancing at the wall-mounted chalkboard displaying the specials of the day to see if he might prefer anything else. Peripherally, he saw Mycroft continuing to take him in, eyes roving from his face all the way down the dip of his open neckline.

When he glanced back at Mycroft, his brother's pupils remained dilated, but his lids had narrowed marginally as they fixed on Sherlock's face.

"All right, what do you want from me?" Mycroft asked, smile not quite reaching his eyes. He had set the menu down on the tabletop and was resting his fingertips just on its corners.

"What are you talking about?" Sherlock said with calculated disingenuousness, raising a hand to signal their waiter over.

"You only ask me out to supper when you need me to get something done for you," Mycroft observed.

(Sherlock conceded privately that the observation was not without justification.)

They hung fire while placing their orders. Both declined to have wine with their meal. He guessed that Mycroft wished to stay clear-headed while dealing with him; he himself preferred that no intoxicating substances contaminate his investigation until he had obtained the data he needed from this evening.

"What do you think I want from you, Mycroft?" he asked evenly after the waiter had left, interlacing his fingers and resting his wrists on the edge of the table.

Mycroft's eyes narrowed a shade further. He sat back in his chair, scrutinising Sherlock, then began to list his observations: "You haven't roped the restaurant staff into one of your schemes to spike my food or drink with sedatives so you can steal my gadgets – no one here on the floor or in the open kitchen is displaying signs of nerves that point in that direction. It's not about getting you on a case or into a restricted site – your eyes aren't flashing that borderline demented look. You do not need my help with obtaining classified information – your posture's wrong for that; you curve your spine forward stiffly when you're pretending not to be attempting to snuffle out state secrets. It's not about your finances – that pained microscopic twitch in the corner of your mouth hasn't made an appearance; also, you haven't needed such help from me in years. I'm not here because you need a favour for one of your friends – you're not wearing that blindingly obvious protective expression. It's not about Mummy, Daddy or Eurus – your forehead is displaying its normal light creasing, whereas of late, your scalp muscles have been unconsciously tightening and pulling back when a matter concerns them."

"So what does that leave?" Sherlock wanted to know, biting his tongue to stop himself from indignantly echoing the _patently unfair_ descriptors of "borderline demented" and "blindingly obvious".

"I imagine it leaves many things," Mycroft answered logically. "However, considering the timing – only two days after your outburst in the car on the matter of my state of mind – I would say that this has to do with me."

"You're right," he chose to go with an honesty he calibrated to be disarming.

The barest flash of surprise crossed Mycroft's face; he hadn't expected him to outright admit it.

"I just want to have dinner with you," Sherlock stated, using the momentum and cover of his genuine honesty to divert his words down a side path paved with omission. "Am I _allowed_ to do that, Mycroft? Just have dinner with you?"

He wasn't convinced. Sherlock could see that. But strategy wasn't considered Mycroft's forte for no reason; he knew when pushing forward would be the equivalent of using his head as a battering ram against a wall of stone.

"Of course you're allowed to have dinner with me," Mycroft answered more softly, letting his smile reach his eyes this time.

It was a concession made to see what else would be forthcoming with permission given to proceed.

"And we can just talk about… us," Sherlock proposed.

"Yes," Mycroft agreed cautiously. "We can just talk about us."

"Don't worry, Dominic Marcini gets enough politicians and colleagues of yours in here to know he needs to constantly be on guard against listening devices. And that camera's off tonight." His eyes flicked towards the one aimed at their end of the room.

"I know," Mycroft said dryly. "I _do_ run my own scans too."

"So," Sherlock began, leaning forward like a dog who'd caught a whiff of something intriguing. "I almost missed it among all the restaurant smells, but I'm not mistaken: Claire de la Lune. Traces on your waistcoat, clashing with your usual autumn cologne. Lady Smallwood _– really_?"

He could see Mycroft swiftly determining if this formed part of whatever ulterior motive he suspected Sherlock had for the evening. Was Sherlock angling for information about Lady Smallwood? Or Mycroft's tryst with her? Was this linked to a case he was on? In two seconds, he saw his brother conclude that he wasn't digging up anything about the lady, and that their liaison was merely an opening topic of casual conversation.

"Why _not_ Lady Smallwood?" Mycroft asked, relaxing his voice while letting through a minor twitch of actual curiosity about how Sherlock would answer the question.

"Not a goldfish."

"Far from it."

"It's not an… _emotional_ thing," Sherlock ventured, watching Mycroft closely to demonstrate – above-board for now – that he was analysing this. "I say that based on what I know of you both."

"If you're planning to trot out the 'cold fish' expression, please spare yourself the effort."

Sherlock was about to fire a retort about it being a _perfect_ expression for both Mycroft's exterior persona as well as everything he happened to know of Lady Smallwood's current inner, outer and medial personae. But for the second time that evening, he had to bite back what might have sidetracked him from his experiment.

Instead, he chose his words carefully: "Right. Well, as long as you make each other happy, I'm happy for you."

There. That fractional hesitation. He wondered if Mycroft was going to gloss over it, but he didn't. Instead, he spoke with unexpected frankness: "I wouldn't call it 'happiness'. But it works for us."

They locked eyes over the table, and Sherlock took in every clue in Mycroft's face before saying with a slow nod of his head: "She's an important… ally. And you're one to her. With 'benefits', as normal people say."

Mycroft took a sip of water. "That fairly accurately sums it up."

"I hope you're at least contented – hmm, no, _contentment_ has a warmth to it that this arrangement does not strike me as having," Sherlock mused. "I should say that I hope you're at least _satisfied_."

A caustic rebuke seemed to be on the tip of Mycroft's tongue, but to Sherlock's surprise, he apparently swallowed it before saying in a thoughtful voice: "Satisfaction is, I suppose, _satisfactory_ in this case."

Sherlock glanced at Mycroft's hands resting on the table. Right thumb, stroking the side of the right index finger beside the proximal interphalangeal joint.

"She mentioned Eurus today," Sherlock murmured.

Mycroft took very little time to work out how Sherlock had deduced that. Raising his right hand just an inch from the table, he tapped his thumb against the spot on the index finger it had gone to earlier. "Did that give it away?"

Sherlock nodded. "You do that when you're concerned about Eurus. I didn't know what to associate the gesture with before, but now I've put her back into my head, I know you unconsciously do that when she's on your mind. She bit you really hard on that finger when she was four."

"Have you remembered everything?" Mycroft asked. To less discerning ears, his voice would sound perfectly even. To Sherlock, it sounded _too_ even.

Unblinking, he studied Mycroft's face as he stated plainly: "I remember _many_ things now."

It was fleeting, but there nonetheless. No one would have spotted it but Sherlock, who knew him so well. Fear. A flash of fear.

"Do you," Mycroft said softly. It wasn't a question.

"A lot more than I did before."

"Do you need me to fill in any blanks?" he sounded resigned.

"Eventually, perhaps. But I'm not here to grill you tonight. Promise."

"Nothing about anything you've remembered recently raises questions?" Mycroft asked doubtfully.

"Nothing urgent. Nothing that won't be answered in time."

The food was served then, so they put their exchange on hold. After the waiter left, they remained quiet through the first few mouthfuls of their respective dishes, finding no complaints about the quality of what they had ordered. As they ate, they gave the other customers – away from their corner in the main body of the restaurant – swift, casual once-overs. No one of interest here.

In those moments of silence, Sherlock cut a strip of his steak which had enough sauce on it and offered it to Mycroft by pushing it to the far edge of the plate. "Try it. It's good. Not drugged, I swear – unless the cattle ingested something iffy."

Mycroft grimaced at yet another reminder of that abortive family Christmas which had gone entirely to hell (complete with drugs, a stolen laptop on which the fate of the free world depended, manslaughter, and what Sherlock was starting to suspect was the most terrifying part of it all for Mycroft: Sherlock in the cross hairs). Still, he reached over, speared the strip of sirloin with his own fork, and savoured it. "It _is_ good," was the judgement he pronounced on it. "I thought the sauce would be unbearably rich, but it's not. I might order it the next time I'm here."

"Please do. So, are you going to tell me why you're worried about Eurus?" Sherlock rerouted them to the topic they'd been on before the food arrived.

Keeping his eyes on his pasta while slowly twirling a ribbon of it around his fork, Mycroft spoke: "Among the few people who knew of her existence all along, some wanted her dead very early in the game. Uncle Rudy fended them off by reiterating how useful her brilliance could be in a crisis. When he finally told me that she was alive – after I had spent more than a decade believing she had died in that fire – he trained me how to keep her safe while protecting others and myself from her. I did all I could. However, the recent catastrophe at Sherrinford has made her existence known to more people in power. With so many deaths caused by her within such a short period of time, including those of civilians, there was only so much covering-up we could do. The voices insinuating that she should be… put down, as it were… are growing more insistent. And I can no longer use Uncle Rudy's old argument for her usefulness in a national crisis."

"Because she's not even talking now," Sherlock, laying down his knife and fork, muttered what Mycroft didn't need to spell out.

"Yes."

"Is she in _imminent_ danger?"

"No. Not while I'm still doing what I do," he said, looking up from his plate. "And we have time to make plans for how to continue protecting her in time to come."

"Mycroft, are _you_ in danger?" Sherlock asked, his appetite disappearing.

"Not for the foreseeable future," he gave a tight, ironic smile, understanding at once that Sherlock was referring both to danger to his person as well as to his position and the power he wielded. "It seems I am still regarded as 'irreplaceable', whatever that means in these times."

"Lady Smallwood is on your side in this matter," he realised.

"Her support has been invaluable."

Sherlock gave a single slow nod. "All right. Is there anything I can do–"

Mycroft cut in with a no-nonsense order: "Don't shoot any more blackmailers in cold blood."

Sherlock reflexively bit his lip, feeling surprisingly chagrined about how much trouble his killing Charles Augustus Magnussen had brought Mycroft. "Yeah, no. Won't do that. Unless other lives are at stake, you know. Or–"

"Please," Mycroft interjected again. "Just _don't_."

"Yes, all right," he mumbled quickly. "Fine."

"Good."

"Yes, good," Sherlock echoed awkwardly. "So. Lady Smallwood. Satisfactory satisfaction. That's fine, although… although I do think that… you should be _happy_ too."

Mycroft looked up, apparently startled by his words, as Sherlock rediscovered his interest in his steak. He forced his appetite to return – both for the food and his qualitative test.

A long pause sat in the air between them before Mycroft asked with surprising gentleness: "Are _you_?"

"Am I what?" he sought clarification, glancing up.

"Happy."

Sherlock had not asked himself that question for longer than he could accurately put a time frame to. And since he _hadn't_ originally anticipated making that remark to Mycroft about how he should be happy, he likewise wasn't entirely prepared to answer this. But he thought about it – _really_ thought about it instead of pretending to do so – and was able to say in all seriousness, without prevarication: "I think I can reach a state of being so one day. Not right now, not for a while to come. Some things are still rather raw. But eventually, I think I'll get there."

(Things that were still rather raw. Remembering Mary. John's grief, pouring forth and receding in waves. Mourning Victor at last. Looking up Victor's family to give them closure and in the same stroke remove all hope by telling them that they had found his bones after so many years. Eurus. Finally recalling everything Mycroft had done for him; finally recalling how Mycroft had felt about him.)

Mycroft acknowledged his spoken admission with a nod, and they ate in silence again for a while.

When they were ready to continue their conversational theme, however, Mycroft overlaid it with a lighter note by making reference to the earlier exchange of text messages, saying: "To arrive at happiness, though, it seems you may have to fight Mrs Hudson for John? Oh, no, I misremember. Your text implied that you might instead have to fight to keep John _away_ from Mrs Hudson?"

He was smirking.

"Mycroft…" Sherlock growled. "John and I are not a couple. As you well know."

"I know no such thing. You act as if you are. The constant bickering, the unbreakable loyalty, all that communication without words, so much unspoken understanding, the juvenile behaviour, the private jokes…"

"Doesn't all that apply as well to _you and me_?" Sherlock sliced through Mycroft's list with a sharp smile, ruthlessly hurling the verbal spear that would pin the meandering exchange down to keep his experiment on track. " _We_ might be a couple, Mycroft."

Mycroft's smirk disappeared to be replaced by a hint of colour in his cheeks. No wine to blame it on. He governed himself well, though, willing his reaction into submission and responding tangentially: "Ah. Well, then, I suppose I can't expect a happy announcement from you and John Watson any time soon."

"As John says, he'd rather snog Mrs Hudson."

"Oh God, the mental image," Mycroft groaned.

Sherlock chuckled. "Hmm, I don't know, they might be quite sweet together…"

"Stop. Please don't take me there."

"Where would you like me to take you, then?"

Mycroft actually coloured again, and dived back into his pasta. "Anywhere but there," he murmured between mouthfuls.

This was the point at which Sherlock would have been ready to dig in more bluntly with a hackneyed _"Your place or mine? You did say to take you anywhere"_ , but he pulled himself up short, caught off-guard by how unexpectedly _vulnerable_ Mycroft looked.

His hesitation gave the other time to recover his composure enough to lift his head again with a curious expression. Glancing once more at Sherlock's jacket and shirt, Mycroft asked: "Well, if not John, then, are you meeting someone _else_ for drinks after this?"

"No. Do I look like I'm meeting someone for drinks after this?" Sherlock asked innocently.

"As a matter of fact, you do. It's been a long time since you've worn anything like that."

"Contrary to what you might believe, I didn't always sell everything you gave me to fund my next high. But I do admit it has taken me unconscionably long to remember that if you hadn't stepped in to see to a lot of my practical needs at certain times, I would probably have spent the last decade wearing nothing at all."

Mycroft very nearly spluttered, but with admirable self-command, wrestled it down enough to pass as a light cough which he promptly drowned in a generous mouthful of water.

 _Susceptibility to putting a sensual spin on what should arguably be a neutral – or even repulsive – mental image of a sibling: check. Interest, attraction: inferred and noted._

An alert server stopped at their table to refill their glasses, but when they were alone again, Sherlock extended his arms very briefly out to the sides – just for a moment, to focus Mycroft's attention once more on what he was wearing (as if he really needed to) – and said: "While I don't thank you often enough, or at all, for everything you've done, just take this as one of my ways of doing that."

"You dressed up for… _me_." Mycroft both sounded and looked disbelieving.

"Yes, Mycroft. Not meeting anyone else after this for drinks, euphemistic or otherwise. I'm all yours tonight."

That did it. That was the point at which he had planned to push Mycroft a shade too far, to see if he would get a stronger reaction. Mycroft's eyes were wide open at first, intrigued and curious. Then the fear flickered over his face again, a flash of worry that Sherlock might have remembered that night. But immediately, still looking full-on at Sherlock, Mycroft narrowed his eyes, allowing Sherlock to assess that he had sussed what this whole evening was about. Just as he braced himself for an explosive confrontation, however, the rug was pulled out from under his feet when Mycroft's expression changed in another swift second. Quite suddenly, he simply looked _sad_. And then, worst of all, he smiled again, said "That's nice", and carried on eating.

Sherlock reeled internally.

He read it all on his brother's face: Mycroft realised that he'd remembered. He knew that he knew. Mycroft thought Sherlock was getting back at him, toying with him to taunt him. Yet, he wouldn't confront him or thrash out the past. He would accept being toyed with, he would play along, because he thought this pretence was the best he could get when it came to this one particular damning facet of his agonisingly complicated relationship with Sherlock.

"Mycroft…" Sherlock began, before discovering that he truly did not know what to say next.

"Oh, I never did ask you, did I?" Mycroft said, so lightly and with such an open smile that the ground shifted under Sherlock's feet again, necessitating swift reorientation. "How did it go with Molly Hooper? When you explained what that phone call was about? You did explain it to her, didn't you?"

"Mycroft, I… Yes, I did," Sherlock backed off quickly, readjusting his position, re-angling his approach to this whole business. "I told her everything – why I had to do that to her. I told her it wasn't a lie. That I did… I _do_ love her very much, as a friend I would trust with my life. A friend I have, in fact, trusted my life with before, and whom I would trust with it again, without question."

"Did she accept that?"

"When I told her how desperately I did _not_ want her to die, how much I was willing to hurt her in order to save her, and that I would readily hurt her all over again to save her once more, that was when she came back to me. I wasn't certain, before then, that I wouldn't lose her."

"It's remarkable, is it not? How far the people who love us are willing to go to forgive us?" Mycroft asked in a manner that struck Sherlock as half-rhetorical, half-pointed.

Mycroft had finished his pasta, and Sherlock was done with his steak, and there was nothing else to do but ask for the bill. Dominic Marcini himself came over when Sherlock was signing for it, to ask how they had found their meal.

"Excellent, as always," Sherlock flashed the proprietor a smile. "Thank you for giving me my usual table at such short notice."

"Not a problem at all, Sherlock," Marcini assured him with the utmost sincerity, palms out, fingers spread. "You and Dr Watson have helped me _so_ much all this time with _so_ many things, and you even saved me from that homicidal sous-chef… this is nothing at all. Whenever you need it, I will hold your table for you _all night_. Oh, and how is Dr Watson? I haven't seen him for some weeks."

"His baby daughter takes up all his spare time."

"Well, we hope to see him back here with you soon. Although you have a very handsome date for tonight too," Dominic grinned.

Sherlock swallowed a lump in his throat he hadn't realised had formed. He glanced at Mycroft, then said to Dominic: "I do, don't I? Mycroft looks amazing. He always does. Even when he thinks that I don't think he does."

This time, it was his turn to shift the ground under Mycroft's feet. He could see, out of the corner of his eye, the sheer surprise on his brother's face. But it seemed that Mycroft was steadier than he was, for he quickly recovered, smiled briskly at Dominic, stood up to shake the man's hand, then put them all out of their misery with a plain, simple, no-hidden-layers-of-meaning statement: "Signor Marcini, please don't listen to Sherlock's nonsense – except, of course, when he is saving you from homicidal sous-chefs. I'm Mycroft Holmes. Sherlock is my little brother."

Sherlock pulled on his coat while Dominic was gushing over getting to meet "Sherlock's big brother" and inviting him to come by very, very often. Then Mycroft picked up his umbrella, and they left the restaurant. He reached into his breast pocket for his phone once they were outside, but Sherlock stopped him. "Wait. Don't call for your car yet."

Mycroft turned to face him and slipped the phone back into his jacket. "I really have had a lovely evening, Sherlock," he said, sounding as if he meant it. "Thank you."

"Indulge me a while longer?" Sherlock asked with equal parts contrition and hopefulness. It was as close to a plea as he'd made to Mycroft since leaving his teens behind.

Mycroft sensed the change in his tone and looked more closely at him, with renewed curiosity.

Sherlock gestured with a light toss of his head towards a spot a couple of doors away from Marcini's. Two shuttered, boarded-up shopfronts of businesses whose premises were undergoing remodelling, their awnings still extended, potted shrubs still in place along the walkway. Mycroft walked with him until they were standing in the darkness outside those shuttered shops.

"I picked Marcini's tonight not only because of the relative privacy Dominic's usually able to offer me, but also because I knew these two businesses were temporarily closed," Sherlock said when they came to a stop. "No security cameras here. It's a blind spot for the street cams too, especially with those awnings. Even dashboard cameras from cars on the street don't catch much, with this faux pillar and these potted plants."

"And why do you need this blind spot?" Mycroft asked.

Sherlock stepped up to his brother, right into his personal space, noting that Mycroft didn't shift away at all, and said softly: "I didn't want us to be caught on camera."

"Why not?" Mycroft's voice had dropped to match his.

"It would probably ruin my reputation."

"Is there anything _left_ to ruin?" Mycroft asked, gently sardonic.

Sherlock's mouth twitched at the understated humour of it. "Well, we have to conserve what we're running short of, don't we?"

"What don't you want to be seen doing?"

"I got you something."

"Oh?" Mycroft's voice had recovered its note of interest.

"Spent part of yesterday shopping for it."

"You. _Shopping_."

"Yes. Me. Shopping. _Really_ shopping. _Not_ nicking stuff off people's clothes lines. For you."

Sherlock extracted the folded-up scarf he had stashed in his right coat pocket, wrapped in a large handkerchief. He put the hanky away, unfolded the scarf, and slipped it over Mycroft's head to lay it against the back of his neck, moving so close to him to do so that the front of his coat pressed right up against the buttons of his brother's jacket.

"I know scarves aren't really your thing – you almost never wear them," Sherlock said, still speaking low, his face no more than two inches from Mycroft's. "But there've been times when I thought you could do with one. And I think this would suit you. I'll take the box round to you another time – I didn't want to fuss with a shopping bag today."

It was a mark of how much Mycroft trusted his safety to Sherlock (or perhaps, more heartbreakingly, how little he cared if only it were Sherlock driving home the blade) that he hadn't so much as flinched even when he had no idea what he was pulling from his pocket or putting around his neck. It almost _hurt_ Sherlock physically to think how his brother seemed to have no self-preservation instincts when it came to him. No sense of how to retaliate. The only one he wouldn't defend himself against even if he twisted his arm up behind him and slammed him into a door frame.

Mycroft fingered the ends of the scarf, feeling the goassamer softness of it, and Sherlock could tell that his practised fingers would have detected by now that it wasn't just wool, or cashmere, or anything so basic. "This is…" he began to say.

"After all the expensive wardrobes you've bought me and I've destroyed," Sherlock interrupted him, "it's small recompense."

Let Mycroft have a fit later, when he confirmed it was vicuna. Let him wonder if Sherlock had emptied every last bloody bank account in his name to buy it. (He hadn't; Mycroft shouldn't underestimate how much he earned from the endless string of _drop-dead boring_ cases he didn't even know Sherlock took for goldfish who had far too much money.)

For now, Sherlock leaned in even closer and whispered into Mycroft's ear: "I meant what I said, you know, about you looking amazing. I never saw it before, but I do now. You look really good."

This close, and in physical contact, hands brushing Mycroft's throat as he straightened the scarf, he actually had further data – elevated heart rate, shallower, more rapid breaths. ( _Arousal and desire: present and observed._ )

But the qualitative analysis didn't matter any more. To hell with the raised levels of **C** _8_ **H** _11_ **NO** _2_ and **C** _43_ **H** _66_ **N** _12_ **O** _12_ **S** _2_ and whatever else. His quasi-chemical test had proven too cold and cruel a tool to use on the fragility, the sheer _tenderness_ , of Mycroft's emotions. He knew now, and Mycroft knew, that it was still there – that forbidden desire, the impossible _want_. Sherlock had confirmed its presence, and it was up to him to decide what would be done about it.

"You should call for your car now," he said, taking a small step back.

Mycroft, never taking his eyes off his face, drew his phone out and rang his driver, then told Sherlock: "I'll give you a lift back to Baker Street."

"No, you've already given me too much of your time and patience tonight – and your forgiveness," Sherlock said frankly. "Truly. Besides, I want to be alone to think."

Mycroft's Jaguar, which had evidently been waiting in one of the nearby side streets, rolled up. The driver held the door open for Sherlock as well, but he shook his head to communicate that he wasn't getting in. Mycroft, already in the back seat, hesitated, but nodded at last to confirm to the driver that his brother wouldn't be needing a lift tonight.

The door closed, breaking their eye contact, and the car drove away.

Analysis done. Findings: some expected; others not at all. Consequences: life-altering.

Sherlock stood there for a whole minute, staring after Mycroft's car. Then he hailed the first empty cab that came along, and returned to Baker Street. To think.

* * *

 **Notes:**  
· Marcini's, of course, is the restaurant mentioned at the end of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's _The Hound of the Baskervilles_ , when Holmes whisks Watson off on what I personally like to think of as a hot date featuring an intimate candlelit dinner and passionate opera. But oh, all right, if I'm to be objective, then Holmes merely invites Watson to join him for _Les Huguenots_ , with a little dinner at Marcini's on the way, and would he please be ready to leave in half an hour. To the best of my knowledge, that original Marcini's no longer exists in London, so I've simply made a new one pop up – almost certainly in the wrong borough of the city – for this fic. (Because the location, look and feel of Angelo's simply doesn't work for what this part of my story calls for.)

· The Latin text is from Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ , first published around 8 AD. The English translation by John Dryden, Sir Samuel Garth, Joseph Addison, Alexander Pope and others, compiled by Sir Samuel Garth in 1717, renders those lines as: "No certain form on any was imprest;/All were confus'd, and each disturb'd the rest./For hot and cold were in one body fixt;/And soft with hard, and light with heavy mixt."


	3. Mystery, Command

**Mystery, Command**

Mystery. Of sorts. This crime was not sufficiently interesting for him. But _something_ was up, because Greg Lestrade hadn't called in the SOCOs yet. They'd normally be impatiently waiting for him to be done with it already. Instead, only the detective inspector's best team – Sally Donovan and her two brightest constables – were here. Despite the small numbers, though, they were _still_ droning on as he crouched beside the body. Why couldn't they keep quiet? What was the point of repeating inanities to one another?

Trust Donovan to be the one whose voice reached his ears most clearly, muttering to Lestrade: "This is bizarre. Someone enters his flat this morning, slices his throat open, breaks into his safe and takes everything in it, but leaves _an entire gold bar_ jammed into his mouth?"

 _Very good, Donovan. Gold star for you. Now shut up._

Sherlock blocked out the background voices as he scrutinised the victim lying face up on the floor of the sleek kitchen in this Chelsea flat. Afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows, illuminating the white-and-steel décor marred by the mess on the pale stone tiles. Mid-30s, gym-toned, manicured and buffed to within an inch of his life before someone had destroyed his polished perfection by slashing his throat, severing the trachea and both carotid arteries, as John confirmed. Blood had soaked through the entire upper half of his green silk dressing gown.

From his mouth protruded a bar of gold that probably weighed about one kilogram.

Nothing of interest here. Apart from a couple of psychological details which someone else could sort out.

"Why are we here?" Sherlock grumbled.

"Because there's a dead man with a gold bar sticking out of his mouth?" John asked in his best "perhaps you haven't noticed" voice.

"No, why are we here?" Sherlock repeated, standing up and turning around to glare at the DI standing just inside the kitchen with Donovan. "There's no mystery, Lestrade. It's obvious."

"As I said when you arrived, this wasn't my idea," Lestrade reminded him with a good-humoured smile. "I knew it wouldn't be an interesting-enough crime scene to keep you amused for more than four minutes."

"Three minutes and thirty-seven seconds," Sherlock shot back.

"Whose idea was it, then?" John asked Lestrade, confused. "And Sherlock, for the thousandth time, your definition of 'obvious' isn't necessarily the same as anyone else's."

"If His Finickiness beside you had stopped to listen instead of grandly sweeping past me as if I were the doorman, he wouldn't have to ask," Lestrade told John. "I had a phone call…"

That moment, Lestrade's phone buzzed in his hand.

"… and here he is," Lestrade finished cheerily.

"You mean…" John began, as understanding dawned. "… Mycroft?"

 _Of course._

"Sherlock – before you go," Lestrade stopped him. "Just tell me if what I've seen matches up with what you have – the pictures, the magazine on the coffee table, the gold shavings on the dining table, the hidden security camera?"

Sherlock studied Lestrade for a moment, then nodded and added: "Also, literary references are etched on the gold bar."

" _That_ , I may need pointers on later," Lestrade admitted before sending Sherlock and John out with a toss of his head. "Go on. Go see what he wants."

Sherlock strode out of the flat and walked downstairs to the street, John half a step behind him. Mycroft's Jaguar was parked by the pavement, Anthea standing beside it with a smile so flawlessly bland, it was practically a work of art. She opened the rear passenger door for them, Sherlock nodded to her, John flashed her a strained grin, and they slid out of the autumn chill into the warmth of the compartment. The door closed behind them, and Sherlock was in Mycroft's presence again.

He hadn't seen him since their dinner at Marcini's two weeks ago. A text he'd sent 12 days back, asking if they could meet, went unanswered for five hours before the response came: _I'm out of the country. I'll contact you when I return._

Texts, e-mail messages and phone calls after that were met with silence. After Sherlock broke into Mycroft's house, Anthea had rung to say that Mr Holmes would get in touch after his trip, and Sherlock should call her in an emergency.

He felt a discomfiting mix of relief that Mycroft had returned, seemingly unharmed, and was sitting beside him now, and frustration that he had _totally ignored him for two fucking weeks_.

Then Sherlock saw the scarf. It rested over his waistcoat but beneath his jacket, one finely woven edge just visible under his lapels and collar, the deep earthy hue with plum undertones sitting well against his predominantly olive-toned suit, cream shirt and sapphire-blue tie with discreet gold markings.

The sight of Mycroft wearing his gift shut him up _just_ long enough to give his brother and John the opportunity to set the tone for their meeting.

"John, Sherlock," Mycroft greeted them politely as if he'd only just seen them yesterday.

"Hello, Mycroft. So it was you who told Lestrade to call us in," John remarked in classic stating-the-obvious fashion. (Which Sherlock had come to appreciate – only _on occasion_ , mind you – as a socially acceptable lead-in to certain conversations requiring civility.)

"I requested it, yes."

"Why?" Sherlock asked.

Between Sherlock and Mycroft, that single-word question prodded at more than one matter, but now was not the time or place for _other_ layers of the query.

"I need you to retrieve something that was taken by the person who entered Henry Carter's home and killed him," Mycroft said. "It has become a matter of some urgency."

"Lestrade's team should have no trouble snaring the killer in a few days," Sherlock pointed out. "Your people can retrieve whatever it is then. You don't need me."

"I need _you_ to get hold of the items," Mycroft stated. "I have every faith in Detective Inspector Lestrade. However, I can't risk inadvertent exposure of sensitive materials that mean nothing to the CID, but are of import to people in significant positions."

"What are these items?"

"Letters," Mycroft replied. "Good old-fashioned ink-and-paper letters."

"What's in them?"

"Might you both have been too young to remember a quarter-century-old case that began when a Chinese politician's daughter eloped with an American diplomat?"

"That rings a bell," John said. "I vaguely recall that she killed their children, then herself, when he left her."

"That's right," Mycroft confirmed.

"What does it have to do with this Henry Carter and his post-mortem gold accessory?" Sherlock asked.

"Narrating the entire history of it may seem like a morbid retelling of The House That Jack Built," Mycroft said, his mood somewhere between grim and amused. "Except that instead of the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt, I'll be going on about the English Casanova who cheated the Frenchwoman who married the American man who abandoned the Chinese woman who killed her children."

Sherlock groaned. "To the point, please."

"Meet me halfway," Mycroft proposed. "I'll give details first, then I'll summarise. Twenty-five years ago, Zhu Yu, the daughter of an elite member of the Chinese Communist Party, was a student in Paris when she fell in love with Luke Patterson, a young attaché with the US embassy in France. In the early 1990s, it would have been hard for a citizen of the People's Republic of China with a politically prominent father to marry an American with a mission in Europe. Much resistance would have come from both sides. Patterson's contacts helped him marry Zhu Yu secretly in France, then he left his job, she abandoned her studies, and they assumed new identities. According to the sketchy intelligence sources Britain had in China at the time, her father raged about how his daughter and the American had run away with all the money meant for her studies."

"Something of the flavour of 'my ducats and my daughter' in that," Sherlock remarked.

"Been re-reading your Shakespeare, have you?" Mycroft asked with an approving smile. "You're not far off the mark. Rumour had it that the girl had not only stolen her father's money, but also gold and jade items of cultural and historical value which he had illegally taken out of China at some point in the past and hidden in his Paris house. Word in the underworld was that he would hunt them down to recover his treasure. However, he was hampered by the eyes of his own party on him; he couldn't even admit to knowing of any such gold and jade artifacts. His daughter was also said to have sent cryptic warnings to him that she would give the CCP evidence of his crimes if anything happened to her or Patterson. Confirmation of such corruption would have meant a death sentence in China."

"But things went bad for her, didn't they?" John asked.

Mycroft nodded. "As far as we know, they lived off her stolen wealth in Marseille. But in less than four years, during which time they had two children, Patterson fell for a Frenchwoman, Isabelle Mollard. He abandoned Zhu Yu, expecting her to put up with his having a mistress. Socially isolated, deeply depressed and bitter, Zhu Yu snapped. She smothered her children – a toddler and an infant – before killing herself with an overdose of drugs."

"Except for her dying, that has Medea all over it," Sherlock muttered.

"Shall I make you a gift of the books on Greek mythology that you removed from my library without asking my leave?" Mycroft's smile was the tiniest bit unsettling. "I'm delighted you're going through them so thoroughly. I'm sure that if I'd mentioned Medea last year, you wouldn't have recognised her name any more readily than Margaret Thatcher's."

"I'll return them when I'm done, Mycroft," Sherlock grumbled, wishing he was alone with him so he could just clear up… _some matters_.

"Back to Patterson. The fool realised the danger he was in with his wife and children dead. Her father, Zhu Jianguo, might now try harder to hunt him down. Patterson thus sought protection from European intelligence agencies. In exchange, he offered information his wife's twin brother had sent her just before she died. It seems that after years of hiding, she'd initiated contact with her brother when Patterson left her. Her brother seemed to have hoped she could use the documents as a bargaining chip – they revealed how Chinese spies had stolen what was considered, at the time, valuable details about new internet and systems-infiltration technology being developed by British, French and American organisations."

"Zhu Yu's brother had access to state secrets?" John asked.

"Both siblings seemed adept at obtaining things they shouldn't have been able to," Mycroft said. "But when Zhu Yu died, the information was left in her husband's hands, and he flogged it to protect himself and Mollard. I won't name names, but _certain_ agents of ours contacted by Patterson then were foolish enough to enter into fairly open correspondence with him. Mollard didn't trust email, which in the mid-1990s was still relatively new to the general population in many countries. So they exchanged conventional letters, in which Patterson alluded to the gold and jade, seeking assurance that he wouldn't have to part with it. Our British idiots actually replied that he could keep the treasure; they only wanted details of the technological secrets stolen by the Chinese spies."

Sherlock looked hard at Mycroft. "And these idiots who wrote to Patterson are still around?"

"Not only that, they have risen to high positions – which is why I won't name names," Mycroft said. "They're prime examples of goldfish who scale the career ladder because of their laughable incompetence rather than the reverse. Thank God I was still at university then and not yet involved with our intelligence services – there's no excuse for such stupidity."

"Why have the letters become a problem now?" John asked.

"From this point, I will summarise heavily," Mycroft said. "In brief: British and French intelligence agencies took the information they needed, cooperated to give Patterson and Mollard a new life elsewhere in France, then British intelligence washed its hands of the case. But Zhu Jianguo was charged with corruption in China in 2000. He admitted to illegally exporting valuable antiques which his daughter had in turn stolen from him. The Chinese government, which was cracking down on the unsanctioned removal of cultural and historic treasures from their country, contacted various Western governments that they thought might have knowledge of the case. Britain was among the countries China sought cooperation from to locate and return the items."

"And the idiots in charge of intelligence at the time denied knowledge of the treasure," Sherlock finished the sentence for his brother.

"Exactly," Mycroft affirmed. "If the letters are exposed now, our government, which at this time needs all the international goodwill and openness to trade deals it can get, will risk damaging its relationship with China for having lied about this years ago. Some people whose names are on those letters are among the ones I previously mentioned as putting pressure on me with regard to Eurus."

"And they've now gone to you, cap in hand, for help," Sherlock said.

Mycroft nodded. "If we can retrieve the letters before anyone sees them, it may kill more than two birds with one stone. The idiots would be in my debt, and I could make them back off. John, I take it that Sherlock has told you of the problems I'm facing at work?"

John nodded. "I'll help in any way I can. But what does the dead man lying in his kitchen have to do with any of this?"

"Henry Carter was a love cheat who pretended to be an IT entrepreneur or whatever he could get away with claiming to be. In reality, he tricked rich, isolated women into falling in love with him before making off with their wealth. Patterson left Mollard everything when he died in a car accident in 1999. She'd been widowed for 16 years when Carter came into her life. After he stole almost everything she had, breaking her heart, she killed herself at the age of 48 in the Cote d'Azur in January this year. There's no sign that Carter knew about her history. He only knew she had a lot of cash and jewellery, and a safe full of antique treasures. Perhaps if he'd only taken _Mollard's_ things, he might not have met this violent end. Unfortunately, he also took a puzzle box and other personal items that had belonged to Zhu Yu."

"A puzzle box?" Sherlock asked. " _Oh._ That decorative cylindrical object in the photographs was a puzzle box?"

"What decorative cylindrical object? What photographs?" John asked, befuddled.

"John," Sherlock sighed. "Did you not notice how house-proud Carter was? The framed pictures in the hallway of how his home had evolved over the years? Or the two-month-old magazine lying open on his coffee table with a spread featuring his flat's interior décor?"

"I… can't say I did," John confessed, deflated.

"Two of the photos were recently framed – however carefully all the frames were polished, the oxidation on those two differed. And glossy print magazines take three to four months from shoots to publication. Which means the pictures shot in his flat for the story were probably taken about half a year ago. The magazine and the two newer framed pictures show his mantelpiece holding an elaborately carved cylindrical wooden item that doesn't appear in the older pictures. So it must have come into his possession little more than six months ago. Now it's missing from the mantelpiece – the flat's well dusted, but I could see a faint outline of where an object had sat for months. It must have been removed this morning."

Mycroft inclined his head. "Zhu Yu's brother, Zhu Zheng, who was not implicated in his father's trial in 2000, moved to Europe in China's new era of relative personal freedom. It appears that he's been trying for years to find out what happened to Patterson and his sister's personal effects. The magazine featuring the one-of-a-kind rosewood puzzle box gave him his lead. He entered Carter's home, killed him and retrieved his sister's personal property."

"It's a bit of a long shot," John noted. "That he would find the one magazine with a picture of his sister's puzzle box."

"That's not quite how it transpired," Mycroft replied. "Remember I told you British intelligence had washed its hands of Patterson and Mollard? We _had_. But we also have agents who are, shall we say, on _intimate_ terms with friendly agents in countries we regard as neutral, or good partners. We do not forbid such liaisons as long as our people understand we must vet everything they share with their foreign partners. A side benefit is that we do receive helpful information from them as well, on cold or peripheral cases. One of our agents is close to a Belgian agent, who coincidentally made contact with Isabelle Mollard several years ago on an unrelated case. Mollard came to think of this Belgian as a harmless but important business associate. Last Christmas, when she'd fought with Carter over something, she spent an evening alone with the Belgian, utterly drunk, boasting about how her late husband had old secrets that could topple governments. Among the things she showed off was Zhu Yu's puzzle box. She told the Belgian that her husband had known how to open the box but she didn't. It was too valuable for her to smash, but she knew Patterson had kept letters in it after his first wife died. Among the names she said she'd seen years ago on these letters were those of the idiots who are now begging for my help."

"When happened then?" Sherlock asked.

"Our Belgian friend told our agent all this. Unfortunately, before MI6 could retrieve the letters, Carter stole Mollard's money and valuables – including the puzzle box – and vanished, breaking her heart. He'd been wooing her under an assumed name, so when Mollard reached out to her Belgian friend for sympathy, she could tell him nothing about Carter's true identity, other than that she was sure he was British. Her suicide hardly made it easier to dig Carter up. At this stage, the case had not crossed _my_ desk, because it had seemed a straightforward MI6 matter. It wasn't until two days ago that a random Facebook user in France posted snapshots from a private party held last year. One showed Mollard with Carter – who did not appear to know his picture had been taken. With that, MI6 finally identified him. By noon today, they had his address."

"But by the time they got there, he was dead," John murmured. "That was when they started begging for your help."

"I had my people alert the CID to the murder, and I put DI Lestrade on the case, privately warning him that he must keep his team very small and trustworthy, call you in first, and keep out everyone else until you were done."

"How did you connect Zhu Zheng to this?" John asked.

"Street camera footage recorded this morning. A man we've identified as Zhu Zheng entered this building at 6am. Zhu has been a businessman in Paris for years now, growing his own network to trace anything Patterson had left behind. Although Mollard herself changed her name long ago, there's every chance he recognised her picture when news reports of her death after being deceived in love were uploaded on French news sites. Zhu Yu probably sent her brother photos of Mollard long ago when lamenting her husband's betrayal, and Mollard was a striking beauty who, by all accounts, had retained her looks. That set Zhu on the same trail after Carter that our services were on, but he had a lucky break that we didn't. Zhu once engaged a British freelance photographer for one of his business projects, and this fellow was among the people he'd sent the Facebook photo to, asking if anybody recognised the man in it."

Sherlock saw where this was going: "And the photographer went 'Oh, hey, isn't that the guy whose flat I shot for the recent issue of _Perfect Homes_? Funny bloke, happy to have his place snapped, but not himself. Want to meet him? Here's where he lives.'"

"Not so crudely, but in sum, yes. We learnt this barely an hour ago. Once we'd identified Zhu from the streetcam footage, we hacked into his accounts and found that e-mail exchange with the photographer."

"But Carter had nothing to do with Zhu Yu's death," John pointed out. "Why would Zhu Zheng _kill_ him and stuff a gold bar into his mouth? That seems highly _personal_. Why not just break into his flat when he wasn't there to get his sister's things back?"

"Remember the literary references I mentioned to Lestrade?" Sherlock asked. "The gold bar has, etched on it, names of two female characters from _A Dream of Red Mansions_ who were let down by the men they loved. Perhaps because of what happened to his sister, Zhu hated men who preyed on, betrayed, or caused the deaths of the women who loved them."

"Very good, Sherlock," Mycroft purred. "Brushing up on Cao Xueqin as well, are we?"

Sherlock coloured at the low register of Mycroft's purr, and hoped John didn't notice. Ignoring the comment, he explained: "The names I could see included three in Chinese ideograms, "林黛玉" (Lin Daiyu), "尤二姐" (You Erjie) and "朱玉" (Zhu Yu), and one in the Roman alphabet, "Isabelle". I'm speculating, but I think the psychological essence of it is that Zhu left the gold bar behind as a statement that he had killed Carter not for his valuables, but for being the final link in the chain of events that had begun 25 years ago with his sister falling for a man who proved unworthy of her love. Although he should have hated Mollard for being the third party in his sister's marriage, he seems to have ultimately perceived her as yet another woman who had suffered because the man she loved had betrayed her. He saw Carter as the cause of her heartbreak and suicide. A life for a life. He killed Carter and added Isabelle's name to the gold bar – he coolly sat there in that house after killing him and breaking into his safe, took one of the old Chinese gold bars from the cache his father had illegally exported, used something sharp to etch the names into it, which is why there are gold shavings on the dining table, and stuffed the bar into Carter's mouth. This also alluded to how, in the novel, You Erjie swallowed a sizeable piece of gold to kill herself after the man who'd taken her as his second wife failed to protect her from his vindictive first wife. Zhu was shoving all that misery back at Carter, in a sense."

"Well… I guess it doesn't _not_ make sense," John said thoughtfully, before asking curiously: "You can read _Chinese_? Since when?"

"All right," Mycroft cut in. "Listen to me. This is what's going to happen: My agents now have eyes on Zhu. And my team is combing through hours of security and streetcam footage to confirm where he's put the things he took from Carter. Once we pinpoint the location of the puzzle box, the CID will arrest Zhu, and your job will begin. I need you, because _none_ of our intelligence units can be _seen_ or _suspected_ to have anything to do with the items. The CID too should be perceived to be investigating Zhu only for killing Carter and committing theft. There must be no indication that the Yard currently knows what significance the items have. I will tell Lestrade what he needs to know to arrest Zhu, and he will question him for as long as possible before charging him with the crimes the CID already has footage of him committing – because Carter's sitting room has a concealed security cam. This will give you time to work on the puzzle box. However, we cannot be certain that Chinese intelligence hasn't paid anyone in the police services to report matters of interest to them, so you _cannot_ be seen fiddling with the box. Wherever we find the box to be, I will have Lestrade smuggle you into that location. His team will secure the area with you inside, unseen. You will remain there until you have opened it and retrieved the letters without damaging the box or leaving any sign that it has been tampered with."

"How do you know Zhu Zheng hasn't already opened it and removed its contents?" John asked.

"Because of another thing Mollard revealed to the Belgian agent during her drunken rant. She said that Patterson and Zhu Yu had been the only two people in the world who knew how to open the box. It was custom-made for Zhu Yu by her late mother, who gave it to her so that she would have – and I quote Mollard – 'at least one place that your brother cannot get to'. From what we've gathered, Zhu Zheng had long been in love with his own sister, and their parents had sent her to Paris while barring her brother from leaving China, to separate the twins. How to open the box was one thing Zhu Yu never shared with her brother, so that, as her mother hoped, she could have a private spot to keep her own secrets in."

"Good Lord," John muttered. "This story just gets more bizarre."

"Go back to Lestrade now, wait for me to brief him on a secured line, and for my team to pinpoint where Zhu has put the box. Let Lestrade arrest Zhu and get you secretly to the box, then you can work on it. John, I need you to protect Sherlock. Are you armed?"

"Not today."

"Take this," Mycroft handed him a fabric pouch which evidently held a revolver. "Use it if anyone gets past Lestrade's team securing your eventual location and tries to hurt Sherlock."

"Right," John said, slipping the pouch into the inner pocket of his coat.

"Okay," Sherlock said with a nod at the same time.

His immediate acquiescence prompted John to cast an odd look between Sherlock and Mycroft. "What, no arguments? No caustic remarks?"

"John, I need to talk to Mycroft," Sherlock said. "Would you go back up and tell Lestrade he can bring in the SOCOs now? I don't need to crawl around that flat any more."

"Sure," John said, opening the door on his side and climbing out of the car. "Please don't kill each other. Should Anthea get in to babysit?"

"Go away, John," Sherlock intoned.

He laughed and shut the door after him, leaving them alone. Sherlock kept his face turned towards the window of the door John had left by, while Mycroft looked out of the window beside him.

"So is this to be one of my 'Labours of Hercules'?" Sherlock asked. "If I pull it off, do I get to claim my reward?"

He felt the full weight of the three seconds of tense silence Mycroft allowed to bear down on him before his brother asked: "You _do_ know, don't you, that Hercules' labours were carried out as penance for killing his wife and children? And there was no reward for him at the end other than the completion of his atonement?"

"Well, I imagine atonement fits quite nicely into this too," Sherlock said softly.

Mycroft was silent for another weighty five seconds before suggesting: "Perhaps you were thinking of Perseus."

"Perhaps I was," Sherlock said, trying to stop a smile from forming on his face. "So, if I slay this Cetus of a puzzle box for you, do I get to claim my Andromeda?"

Yet another dramatic silence sat between them for several seconds, ending with Mycroft saying very cautiously: "I hope you're under no illusion that your Andromeda is a virgin, a beauty and a bride. That would be asking rather too much in this day and age."

Sherlock, unable to hold it in any more, let out a tiny snort of laughter as he referenced the old jibe Irene Adler had once made: "I thought _I_ was supposed to be the virgin."

In his peripheral vision, he saw Mycroft touch the knuckles of one gloved hand briefly to his lips as he disguised his own huff of laughter as a clearing of his throat, followed by the remark: "That must explain why you always seem to be on the verge of being sacrificed for one thing or another."

Mycroft's remark had a touch of humour, but also guilt, and Sherlock didn't want to hear that, so he quickly replied: "This particular virgin is capable of biting back harder than the monsters, you know."

Mycroft gave in to a low chuckle and observed: "Virgins certainly aren't what they used to be."

"And beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I think I like the look of my Andromeda. So, will I get to claim my prize?"

"Go and slay that Cetus of a puzzle box first. Afterwards, you can seriously consider whether you really _want_ to claim your prize," Mycroft answered.

"And to ask if my prize is willing to be claimed," Sherlock added, reading the unspoken thought.

"Indeed. Prizes aren't what they used to be either, as you know."

"All right. I'll go. I'll see you very soon with the letters," he said, turning his head for the first time since they'd been left alone to look properly at Mycroft.

"Don't make promises you may not be able to keep," Mycroft warned, likewise turning to face him.

"Fine. I'll do my best. Oh, but I've just realised – we're wrong about the puzzle box being the Cetus I have to slay. The puzzle box is the Gorgon I have to decapitate so I can return with the head that will petrify the Cetus of your enemies."

"I begin to suspect that _your_ curly head full of twisting snakes will be quite enough to petrify them all by itself," Mycroft commented.

"Good. Then whatever happens I can enter into negotiations for a prize that may or may not wish to be claimed. Feisty prize, is it? Or… would _frosty_ prize be more pertinent to our specific context?"

"Good God," Mycroft shuddered, but his cheeks betrayed a touch of pink. "Get out of here before your cringe-inducing analogies turn _me_ to stone."

Sherlock bit down again on the smile threatening to erupt, and left Mycroft's car.

Later, when the call came and Lestrade made his move, Sherlock found himself concealed in a Soho hotel suite where Zhu had locked up everything he'd taken from Carter's flat. There was the puzzle box – a thing of beauty, about 30cm tall and 20cm in diameter, so elaborately carved it was hard to know where to start appreciating the numerous birds, flowers and symbols shaped on it, and intricately assembled with more than twenty moving parts that might or might not align to let you in.

He first photographed it from every angle to ensure that he would put it back as he'd found it. It was a devilish contraption – not a basic puzzle cylinder that only required you to rotate the sections until the internal mechanism lined up to let you separate the segments. This had all that, as well as sliding catches and tabs. Sliding the wrong catch or raising the wrong tab in a combination that might otherwise get you somewhere would lock down an adjacent segment and keep the box closed.

"John, this will take a while," Sherlock warned his partner.

"Do what you have to. Rosie's fine with Mrs Hudson tonight; I'm not going anywhere," John assured him.

The crime no longer had so much as a scrap of mystery left in it, yet it was now worth every bit of Sherlock's interest and time as he bent his mental powers to working out how to open the box without damaging it.

* * *

Command. He had always been the master, ordering underlings on missions, commissioning champions to execute his plans, manipulating them like game pieces for his country. Sherlock had been the most brilliant and unpredictable knight he had wielded to keep this kingdom safe.

His brother had never gone forth quietly. Biting sarcasm and petulance always peppered the preamble before he charged off and unleashed chaos on the world. But that had not happened today. Never before had Sherlock accepted a task from Mycroft so willingly. Never had he expressed so plainly that he would readily do it because he was doing it _for Mycroft's sake_.

It gave him an unsettling sensation. Echoes of their incredibly _embarrassing_ exchange in the car fluttered in his belly, making him feel adrift in his usual role as the commander who watched and coordinated all through the monstrous Argus of his network of camera-eyes. Sherlock's double-layered words, like an infernal spell, had left Mycroft disorientated, as if someone had shoved him onstage without prior warning into a performance in which he was suddenly expected to play the damsel in distress.

A damsel masquerading as the god of war, watching her knight go into battle for her.

Ridiculous. And here came that terrifying flutter in his belly _again_.

Anthea must have sensed something off about him, for she told him to leave the command centre and go home to rest as he hadn't slept since stepping off the plane last night. When he ignored her, she _insisted_ , assuring him that she would keep him apprised of every development.

So he went home and forced himself to sleep, knowing he would need mental sharpness later. He managed four hours – more than adequate – before an update woke him at 3.30am. Sherlock and John were leaving the hotel, and Lestrade's team was driving them to Baker Street. Sherlock, Anthea said, looked ready to crash. She didn't think he would resurface before daybreak.

Mycroft knew better.

True enough, Anthea swiftly provided a fresh update, and at 4.30am, Sherlock rang Mycroft's doorbell, actually waiting patiently to be admitted instead of pulling his usual stunt of breaking into the house.

When Mycroft let him in, he held out a Loro Piana shopping bag. "Here's the paraphernalia your scarf came with, as promised two weeks ago," he slurred, not from alcohol or drugs, but sheer fatigue. "Getting the contents separately from the packaging is novel, isn't it?"

"You always have to do things differently," Mycroft remarked.

"Well, it does give the giver another opportunity to add something else worth having to all the wrapping."

Mycroft lifted the boutique box out of its carrier and opened it to find the letters from two decades ago.

"Well done, Sherlock," he breathed. "Thank you for the present. It's perfect."

"Go lock up your Gorgon's head safely," Sherlock told him. "Can I use your shower?"

Mycroft eyed him, assessing how mentally worn he was from solving the puzzle.

"Yes," he finally agreed, when he determined that his brother was in no shape to engage in strenuous argument with him for at least the next five hours. "The spare bathrobes are…"

"Yeah, I know where everything is," Sherlock mumbled, staggering upstairs.

Mycroft locked the letters in his safe, then he sat in his armchair downstairs for half an hour, drinking a shot of whisky, because even though Sherlock was wrecked, he still knew exactly what he was going to find up there.

He eventually set his glass down, switched off the lights, and ascended to the upper level of the house, that unsettling sensation still fluttering in his belly. As expected, Sherlock had showered, towelled off, dropped all his clothes and the bathrobe on the floor of Mycroft's bedroom, and was now sprawled across Mycroft's bed. His damp hair was spreading a wet patch over one of the pillows, a set of pyjamas he'd pulled out of the wardrobe was untidily abandoned atop the duvet, and he was bare under the covers, asleep.

Mycroft stood beside the bed in the demi-darkness for long minutes, watching him by the light from the passageway beyond the room, until Sherlock stirred.

"Mmph… didn't mean to drift off… we haven't had our discussion yet."

Mycroft shook his head. "Not now. You're exhausted."

"Not so exhausted that I can't negotiate."

"Not with _me_ , when you're not at your best. You know I'd take full, disgusting advantage of you."

"I was rather hoping you would."

"I'll leave you to your rest," Mycroft said abruptly. "You need it."

"Lie down with me."

"No."

"I won't touch you without your permission."

"I'm not certain that either of us has a particularly good grasp of what constitutes permission from the other."

"Lie here with me, anyway."

"Put on some clothes."

"Will it make any difference?"

"Perhaps _you_ should tell me if it will."

Gazing up at him, Sherlock murmured: "We have enough to consider that one layer more or less of clothing barely constitutes a drop in the bucket."

Sherlock moved over to one side of the bed, and Mycroft exhaled in resignation. Shedding his dressing gown but keeping his pyjamas on, he got into bed, turning to face the one against whom he had no sense of self-preservation.

Never taking his eyes off him, Sherlock waited until Mycroft had settled under the duvet and was still. Then he quoted in a sleepy baritone murmur that sent shivers up and down Mycroft's spine:  
"' _Say that we had one father, say one womb  
_ _(Curse to my joys!) gave both us life and birth;  
_ _Are we not, therefore, each to other bound  
_ _So much the more by nature? by the links  
_ _Of blood, of reason? nay, if you will have it,  
_ _Even of religion, to be ever one,  
_ _One soul, one flesh, one love, one heart, one all?_ '"

"I see you've been raiding my library for more than just mythology," Mycroft remarked, suppressing another shiver.

"While you were gone, I looked at all your books again, and I remembered how often you used to read that play," Sherlock said. "It's a very well-thumbed copy you have there on your shelf. You've probably got the whole thing memorised."

"I took it seriously as a cautionary tale," Mycroft gave a thin smile.

"Gods take their siblings as their lovers and spouses."

"And the gods always punish mortals who do the same."

"Mycroft, you _are_ a god in a world of goldfish," Sherlock chuckled sleepily.

"Your brain must have turned to pulp if that's the best argument you can offer me," Mycroft groaned.

"Not at all. We've always done what no one else could, Mycroft. So kiss me."

"Not a good idea."

"Because I mean the world to you?" Sherlock asked.

"You _do_ remember."

Sherlock shifted a little closer to Mycroft. "If I'd kissed you then instead of just groping you, would it have made a difference?"

"No. Because you didn't want it, Sherlock. That was the heroin talking."

It was Sherlock's turn to shake his head. "No, I did want it. I just forgot. Like I forgot so many things."

"Now I think it's the fatigue talking. You're high on exhaustion, brother mine."

"I assure you that I'm in full control. I'm keeping my word, aren't I? I haven't touched you without your permission. But _you_ can touch _me_. I'm asking. Kiss me, Mycroft."

"To what end?"

"I want to know. You want to know. Let's just find out."

"Is this how you blunder through your cases? Trial and error?"

Sherlock inched even closer. "Does it matter? In any case, I believe your conquering hero merits at least one kiss."

The unsettling sensation sharpened into a jolt, and Mycroft felt his face heating up again, only the darkness of the bedroom concealing his embarrassment.

"Don't do that," Sherlock whispered, his face just an inch from Mycroft's. "Not to yourself. Don't _think_ all that… Not with me…"

Mycroft could feel Sherlock's breath on his lips, the heated air between them, the shifting of the sheets as Sherlock instinctively reached for him.

"Keep your hands to yourself," Mycroft reminded him.

"I just want…" he began, continuing to shift closer.

"I haven't given you permission to touch me – keep your hands to yourself," he repeated firmly, seizing Sherlock's wrists and pinning him back against the mattress.

It was an echo of the night his brother at 17 had offered to service him for drug money, somehow having just _known_ that Mycroft desired him in ways he should never have. Now, rather than holding them apart from each other, Mycroft was holding him down, taking charge as he closed the virtually non-existent distance between them.

The unsettling feeling that had plagued him for hours dissipated as he reasserted control, no longer submitting to this unpredictable knight's recasting of Mycroft as the prize to be won. Perhaps they could play that game another day, but not now, not today.

"Mycroft…" Sherlock whispered against his mouth, lips brushing his, unclothed body pushing up against him as Mycroft pressed him down, his erection smearing pre-cum onto Mycroft's pyjamas.

It seemed that even when he was in control, he always gave in to Sherlock, so he pressed in closer and claimed Sherlock's mouth in a hard and demanding kiss, pushing his tongue in and tasting him hungrily, forcing a moan from his brother as he writhed beneath him. If Sherlock was repulsed, if this experiential step taught him that he didn't want this, if it was never to happen again – then this way he could pretend it was Mycroft who had forced it on him, and wipe it out of his mind if he wished…

But Sherlock was kissing him back eagerly, and the hardness he was pressing up against his thigh was growing. Mycroft released Sherlock's wrists and worked one hand into his curls, still damp from the shower, while his other cupped his brother's beautiful face. And he held his breath as he deepened his crushing kiss, waiting for the moment of truth, waiting to learn if Sherlock would push him away.

Sherlock growled.

Then Mycroft felt his brother's strong arms going around him in a command to stay where he was, one hand against the nape of his neck, the other on his back, pulling him closer, pulling him hard against him, drawing him in, wanting more, demanding greater access, communicating in a fiery wordless language that he had no intention of letting him go.

* * *

 **Note:** The lines Sherlock quotes are from _'Tis Pity She's a Whore_ , by John Ford, a play that Mycroft has also quoted from in the preceding chapters.


	4. Seduction, Exception

**Seduction, Exception**

Seduction. The smoky burn of whisky lingering on Mycroft's tongue was harsh in Sherlock's mouth, dry and sensitive as it was from his unplanned nap. But he chased the edgy, bitter pleasure, the pleasing shock of Mycroft's roughness in their first unbrotherly kiss.

His right fist was tightening in Sherlock's hair, almost painfully, but he savoured the sting in his scalp. In contrast, the fingers of Mycroft's left hand traced the contours of Sherlock's right cheek, mapping by touch the bones under the flesh, refamiliarising themselves with the shifting of the muscles and skin as he kissed back hungrily.

It felt perfect, this undercurrent of brutality. He needed it, probably deserved it, after all of Mycroft's superhuman patience over his lifetime of impossible misbehaviour. After all of Mycroft's suppressed desires, and Sherlock's whimsical treatment of them as and when he chanced to remember.

He hadn't been completely honest five minutes ago when he claimed to have wanted his brother that drug-tainted night. He hadn't, if he remembered that moment correctly. He'd been prepared to go through with whatever might have induced Mycroft to give him money – a blowjob, a handjob, full-on fucking, anything – but it had just seemed like an interesting experiment at the time, with the potentially sweet reward of another hit of heroin.

But _dis_ honest? Not entirely, either. Other moments had come back to him during these two weeks that Mycroft had gone away and ignored him. Like when he was 13, just beginning to feel the itch of his adolescent hormones upsetting his body's equilibrium. For years, he had observed his brother shedding his puppy fat, but in one startling moment he realised the sum of it – just how much of the Mycroft he'd known had disappeared. All the excess flesh had melted off his frame, exposing a 20-year-old stranger he had never seen before (physically, at least; Mycroft's gorgeous mind was the same). Sherlock felt a sense of loss because, when he traced the web between the bare patches of his memory, he knew he'd _loved_ the Mycroft who had melted away, yet his body nagged him with annoying twitches of carnal interest in this stranger – lean, ever so tall, pale, irritatingly proper, the weight of the world on his shoulders, Atlas not yet turned to rock, Atlas refusing to shrug…

 _Oh, damn._ Sherlock was dragged back into the present, jolted by the sensation of… cessation, actually. Mycroft had stopped kissing him, although his right hand remained fisted in his hair while his left traced Sherlock's jawline. He tried to draw him back down, but Mycroft resisted, hovering above him, penetrating him with eyes that were dark with longing, yet sternly uncompromising.

"I'd prefer it if you didn't lie to me, Sherlock," his voice, low and kiss-roughened, was otherwise inflectionless. "You didn't want it that night, and you didn't simply forget you wanted it. You never did, did you?"

A prelude to withdrawal. Was that a farewell kiss? No, he could salvage this, because Mycroft was still rock-hard against his groin under the duvet, and he was very aware that the fingers of his brother's left hand were now trailing down his neck, stroking maddeningly arousing lines over the sensitive nerves of his throat. He shivered with the sensuality of it, knowing all was not lost – if he played it very, _very_ honestly, but also cleverly, he wouldn't lose Mycroft at this vital juncture.

It was impossible, at any rate, to lie to Mycroft right now. However well he could act, it wasn't too often that he could hide from his brother, and deception was not possible when they were like this – Sherlock naked, their bodies flush, those unnervingly familiar/familial, perceptive eyes boring into his from three inches away.

"When I was 13, I mourned you and rediscovered you all at once," Sherlock began to speak, a little breathless from the sensations of Mycroft's fingertips drawing another sinuous line down, then up, the side of his neck. "You'd burnt every last ounce of excess weight off your bones, and though we were no longer close, I missed that old body I'd adored. You looked like someone I didn't know at all, but I was fascinated by the way that stranger looked – and even more fascinated by how he looked at me. God, Mycroft, the _way_ you looked at me…"

"You were always a beautiful child," Mycroft said, his voice a little softer, although still too grim for Sherlock to think he wasn't in danger of losing him. "But for the first time, I could see the man you would grow into, and I couldn't look away."

"When I was 14, and you were home from uni that summer, you appeared even more of a stranger, but you were still my Mycroft when I fell out of the ash tree on the south side of the cottage, and you panicked," Sherlock smiled, his breath catching as Mycroft dipped a finger into the hollow at the base of his throat. "You literally picked me up and cradled me on your lap as if I'd been six or whatever. It sent the weirdest shivers through me. So I clung to you instead of pushing you away like I'd been doing since… probably since Victor disappeared, though I'd forgotten."

"It was the last time for a long time that you clung to me," Mycroft recalled. "Until you started on the drugs and went through those periods of helplessness before you learnt to manage your comedowns better."

"I had a hard-on, you know," Sherlock admitted with a huff, cautiously stroking his thumb over the nape of Mycroft's neck. "Could barely believe how you snatching me into your arms could do that to me. I was afraid you'd feel it, but I didn't want to let go of you."

"Was that why you were squirming while wrapping your arms around my neck?" Mycroft asked, with the hint of a smile.

"You couldn't tell?" Sherlock asked, a small tremor running through him as Mycroft loosened his grip on his hair to trace soothing patterns into his scalp.

"No, I was terrified – I thought you'd landed on your head," Mycroft murmured. "I was even more certain the fall must have knocked all sense out of you when you clung to me, because you hadn't wanted to be near me for years, ever since I'd been unable to bring Victor back."

"I was angry with you," Sherlock said softly. "I shouldn't have been. You were only a child too when we lost Victor. What could you or I or anyone have done with Eurus, whose mind we _still_ don't understand? But I couldn't remember why I was upset with you. I only knew I was. Later, when I felt what I felt for the stranger you'd become, I tried to erase my feelings. So I might not really have wanted you that night when I was 17. But it's also true that I wanted you before; I just pushed it into the gaps in my mind."

If they were to obey logic, Sherlock knew that Mycroft's next question ought to be: _"Why now, then? What attracts a person at 14 is not what attracts the same person at 33, so what is this? Pity? Pity for the stuffy, ageing figure of fun you've made me out to be for years now?"_

Sherlock knew that if he had to produce an answer, he could compose one that might go thus: _"Because I remember now how much you loved me but held back for my sake. And I know how much you still love me and are still holding back. I ribbed you for years because I didn't want to see how much the stranger you metamorphosed into when I was 13 still intrigued me. I'm growing to like what I see, and I've always been in lust with your mind, so I want to try this."_

But in truth, he didn't know if he could explain it that way, because it went beyond logic and sense and chemistry and mathematics. It was magic and instinct and alchemy and myth, and he might struggle to write a rational psychology exam answer on it even if Moriarty were to rise from the grave to hold a gun to his head.

Moments passed, yet Mycroft held back from asking the logical question. He remained silent as they lay together under the duvet, caressing Sherlock's hair and throat, and Sherlock perceived – through instinct, magic, or whatever had snatched the reins from cold reason – that what Mycroft felt was trepidation. He was _afraid_ to pinpoint what Sherlock wanted from him now, and afraid to be either too precise or comprehensive about what he wanted from Sherlock after denying himself for so long.

Sherlock searched for something to say, but Mycroft bent to kiss him again – with unbearable gentleness this time. Had Sherlock extracted the appropriate words from the maelstrom of language in his head, he wouldn't have known how to use them now, not when Mycroft's hand was stroking a long, burning line down the side of his body to his right thigh, while his mouth explored Sherlock's tenderly.

Words became inadequate. They'd always had other languages, he and Mycroft, through the seasons of their lives as brothers, enemies, reluctant comrades-in-arms, a brace of demons battling back-to-back on the side of the angels while taking occasional casual jabs at each other. Now, they were discovering yet another language they had never used together, learning it swiftly on the fly. They'd conversed in a similar tongue with other people, but it was different with each other. It was always unique between the two of them – the lightning speed of communion, semantics no one else could fathom, a secret grammar sprung from the unholy union of devils and the Sons of God.

Mycroft eased out of the kiss, and Sherlock's throat involuntarily summoned a half-growl, half-whimper. He thrust up against his brother's belly, only to have his right hip gripped by a firm hand to hold him still. He was readying himself to whimper again in protest when Mycroft began a series of infuriatingly light kisses from one corner of his mouth down his neck to his collarbones, peppering his skin with _altogether not enough strongly-worded sensation_ , until he flicked his tongue over Sherlock's left nipple, and Sherlock moaned, clutching at the back of Mycroft's head. Mycroft licked and mouthed at the dusky circle of skin, making it pucker and stiffen, then suddenly nipped at it. Sherlock jumped, only to be soothed by another caress of his brother's infernally clever tongue.

He was just beginning to lose himself in the sensations of the sensitive nub of nerves being drawn into that nimble mouth when Mycroft switched over to his other nipple while running a hand beneath Sherlock's hips and slipping it under his arse to pinch his right buttock.

Sherlock yelped.

"Mycr–" he whined, but Mycroft straddled his body, pushing the duvet off both of them, exposing Sherlock completely. His mouth was covered again in a searing meeting of lips, tongues, teeth – nothing tender, nothing sweet, the coppery taste of a smear of blood seeping from one or the other of their lips – it didn't matter, when they were one blood and one flesh, anyway.

In their fledgling language, Sherlock could read Mycroft, in every affectionate touch, every dominant push, communicating: _Patience – be still – you needn't always tear along at such a frenetic pace – let me take you apart and think about whether I'll put you back together the same way – forgive me for almost getting you killed – I'm sorry you didn't know I was always there for you – but you were a handful, brat – no, I'm not sorry you suffered sometimes – you could have done with a thorough spanking – rascal – you have no idea how much grief you've caused me – I adore you, I adore you, I adore you…_

Sherlock answered, meeting Mycroft's tongue with his own, tasting him through the tinge of blood in their mouths, daring now to let his hands roam over his brother's still-clothed back, his chest, his arms, his sides. But when he tried to tug those lawn-cotton pyjamas off him, Mycroft pushed his hands away.

He voiced a guttural complaint and tried to break the kiss so he could speak. But Mycroft put the brakes on that by running a finger down the length of his younger brother's cock, drawing a gasp from him. As Sherlock's breath caught, he locked eyes with Mycroft, and that very moment, Mycroft curled a firm hand around his shaft and stroked once, twice, three times, making him pant.

"Mycroft…" he began, a little hoarsely, but his brother seemed determined to continue their exchange in the new language they were learning instead of reverting to old speech, for he removed his hand from Sherlock's rampant, weeping erection, drawing another whine of protest from him. Before the whimper could shape itself into words, he grasped Sherlock's hips with both hands, shifted down, and dipped his head to take his cock into his mouth in one smooth, hot glide that had Sherlock yielding to him with a cry, arching his back and baring his throat.

He shifted a hand off Sherlock's hips to grasp the base of his shaft, controlling the depth of his thrusts, while his other hand caressed all the inches of skin he would never have explored when he had strictly been Sherlock's brother – the firm curves and the crevice of his arse, his scrotal sac, the insides of his lean-muscled thighs – leaving him trembling for release.

Infuriatingly, when he was close, Mycroft let him slip out of his mouth and applied firm pressure with his thumb and forefinger just below the head of his prick to slow things down. Sherlock almost howled with frustration, but Mycroft reclined smoothly beside him again, and nipped gently at his left ear with his teeth. Sherlock inhaled a shivery breath through gritted teeth, then dissolved into mush again as Mycroft teased his ear with the tip of his tongue, tracing the curves and grooves of the tender shell, telling him without words: _Always in such a hurry. Slow down sometimes, when there's no need to rush._

Mycroft curled his hand around him again when he felt slightly less hard, and resumed a moderate, steady rhythm. Paired with the teasing tongue in his ear, it had Sherlock quivering with so much stimulation, he twisted his head towards Mycroft's face, both to hide his ear against the bed sheet and to look at the one who was reducing him to this state. Mycroft gazed at him with an expression that mingled pleasure and guilt, affection and steel, arousal and concern. Sherlock slid one hand over Mycroft's cheek, then his temples, then ran his fingertips over his nose and lips, trying to count every careworn line, wondering how many he himself had put there.

It was intensely intimate, this – looking into each other's eyes and exploring the mortal lines on his brother's face while he trembled and panted from the steady flexing of Mycroft's wrist. He didn't want Mycroft to look guilty, or sad, or worried; he wanted… he just wanted… but the pace dictated by that elegant, deadly hand sped up then, and Sherlock felt himself impossibly hardening and tightening even further, everything growing taut and pulling up, and surely he couldn't keep going like this without _bloody losing consciousness_? Then in a second, his fingers were no longer touching Mycroft's face, because his brother had shifted away after brushing a kiss against the palm of his hand – to sheathe Sherlock's prick with his mouth again, and the wetness and pressure and heat were just _perfect_.

His game of seduction had led him up this peak, and Mycroft had played an even better game, because Sherlock was the one now on the precipice.

He tipped over the edge.

He orgasmed hard, crying out incoherently as he emptied himself down Mycroft's throat, consumed from head to toe with sensation that whited out his vision for several seconds. Maybe his hands were crushing the sheets, or tearing his brother's hair. It hardly mattered in those moments of weightlessness, of free-fall, when everything seemed possible. Even happiness.

* * *

Exception. He swallowed when Sherlock came in his mouth, without even having to think about it, which said much about his psychology in relation to his brother. On those increasingly rare occasions when he had been the one to go down on a male partner, he had seldom permitted the ejaculate to enter his throat. The taste and texture were not to his liking, especially if the man was a smoker – something about a smoker's load was particularly sour and unpleasant. But as had been borne out repeatedly over the course of their history together, what was unacceptable from others was acceptable if it came from Sherlock.

Again, that said much about how his mind worked when it involved his little brother. And the fact that this person naked here in his bed – sated and semi-delirious with orgasm and mental fatigue – was _his little brother_ spoke several libraries' worth of possibly highly disturbing things about them both.

"Are you all right?" Mycroft asked, lying alongside Sherlock, slipping an arm over his flat, creamy, abdomen – rising and falling as he met his body's demands for oxygen in the wake of his climax – to rest his hand in the gentle dip of his waist.

Sherlock mumbled indecipherably without opening his eyes, so Mycroft kissed his cheek, drew the duvet over him, and turned towards the edge of the bed. He had just sat up and swung his legs over the side where his bedroom slippers were when Sherlock murmured: "Where do you think you're going?"

Mycroft turned his head to see that he had opened his eyes and was watching him with a keenness that no one who had just climaxed violently, and been ready to crash from mental exhaustion two hours ago, had any right to display.

"To get some work done," Mycroft said, reaching back to squeeze Sherlock's right ankle through the duvet, in what was intended to be a reassuring "everything's fine, go to sleep" gesture.

"Why did you ignore me for two weeks?" Sherlock asked. It should have seemed like an out-of-the-blue question, but between the two of them, verbal arrows flying out of left field weren't always surprising. Or illogical.

"I thought we needed a cooling-off period – after all that… excitement at the restaurant," Mycroft said softly, but also a touch ironically.

"Does this seem cooled-off to you in any way, shape or form?" Sherlock asked with a wryness to rival his, propping himself up on his elbows.

"I wanted time and space to think. About you, this, us."

"Your conclusion?"

"That there was a high probability of my going along with what you wanted, provided it wouldn't destroy you."

"I'd say you almost destroyed me with some mind-exploding sex," Sherlock said, completely straight-faced, sitting up fully.

He didn't stay there, of course. Not Sherlock. He pushed the duvet aside, leaned over, and wrapped his arms around Mycroft's waist, hands slipping under the fine cotton. Mycroft put his hands over those exploring ones, the fabric of his pyjamas between them, tamping down the urge to flee not only because he had just shamelessly sucked his sibling off, but also because, of all the places on his body, Sherlock _had_ to be running his hands over Mycroft's middle – less than taut and not always trim, a constant cause for self-consciousness.

"I'd hoped that mind-exploding sex would at least make you go to sleep as you ought to have done right after solving the puzzle," Mycroft sighed, failing to nudge his brother's persistent hands off him.

"Hmm, you should have tried that tactic when I was a kid and wouldn't lie down for days," Sherlock chuckled, resting his chin on Mycroft's shoulder.

Mycroft felt his cheeks burning, and he attempted to wrench himself out of his embrace, snapping: "For God's sake, Sherlock, I am not and never was a paedophile!"

Sherlock clung to him stubbornly with his ridiculously strong arms – and laughed softly: "I know, Mycroft – I _know_. You've never been _that_ sort of deviant, although you're all other kinds. But so am I. And you were the best big brother. Always. I didn't know it, and I'll probably forget it again next week in some fit of insanity or temper, but you were and are the best."

"Anyone who knew you'd said that about me right after coming in my mouth would be left in no doubt about your insanity," Mycroft groaned.

Sherlock was kneeling up behind him now, arms encircling his chest as he nuzzled him, planting kisses on his temples, his ears, his cheekbones, his jaw, and the nape of his neck where the ends of his hair touched the skin. "As I said, we've always done things no one else could," he murmured in between the nuzzling and kissing. "I want you in all ways, Mycroft."

"Do you, really?" Mycroft asked. Sherlock was made of impetuousness, desire for novelty and excitement chased hard by crashing boredom and abandonment, and questionable judgement in his choice of stimulating substances. Mycroft had no wish to find his name on a grubby list in Sherlock's pocket months from now after everything had gone pear-shaped, scrawled after "cocaine", "heroin" and hell knew what else.

"Mm-hmm, really," he whispered, cupping Mycroft's chin with one hand and turning his head gently to one side so he could kiss him on the mouth.

Sherlock could probably detect the residual taste of his own semen on his tongue, mingling with the last traces of the whisky. He probably didn't care. He'd always been far less bothered than Mycroft about peculiar tastes – the mad chemist, dabbing all manner of dubious substances onto his tongue to discover what they were. Each year, on his brother's birthday, their father had always found a way to express surprise that Sherlock had survived as long as he had without metamorphosing into some manner of beast (with odds on it being one possessed of scales, horns and a forked tail).

He was pressed right up against his back now, still kneeling, but with his legs spread so his thighs and knees bracketed Mycroft's hips. His hands made their way down Mycroft's body, and he asked: "May I?"

Mycroft didn't answer, which Sherlock took as permission. It was becoming a habit. _("You haven't said no. It's a date.")_

Sherlock undid the drawstring tie of Mycroft's pyjama bottoms and slipped a hand inside to curl his fingers and palm about his phallus, still hard as a rock. Mycroft drew a hissing intake of breath, and his entire body tensed – which did not go unnoticed.

"Can I undress you, Mycroft?" Sherlock asked with uncharacteristic gentleness. "I want to see you."

"There's nothing to see."

"Is it so difficult to think of yourself as an object of desire? You turn Lady Smallwood on, that's for sure."

It was miles beyond disturbing to be talking of his other lover while his brother was slowly fisting his prick, but nothing about them had ever been normal, had it?

"She was married for many years to a man with very human imperfections, both physical and emotional," Mycroft said, his breath growing slightly uneven. "She is a woman who is most forgiving of flaws, mine included."

"I like all your flaws," Sherlock whispered, stroking him from weeping head to engorged root, slowly, carefully. "They're what make you human. If I've ridiculed you in the past it was because I didn't like how you tried so comprehensively to erase them and be _less_ human."

Mycroft was unconvinced that most of the ridicule wasn't merely regular cruelty from an insensitive younger sibling, but this was as close to an apology as he would get from Sherlock at this point. He told him frankly: "I don't believe you. But I believe that's what you want to believe, so I'll accept it for the present."

"I'll make it true from now," Sherlock responded. "Let me see you."

"No. It's fine this way."

"Can I use my mouth?"

"No, just keep going like this."

"You'll come in your pyjamas," Sherlock said, stopping the movements of his hand – explicitly against Mycroft's instructions to just keep going. _Infernal brat!_

"My problem, not yours," Mycroft said through gritted teeth.

"It's going to be dry and uncomfortable."

"Again: my problem, not yours."

"You don't even keep any lube in this house."

Mycroft rolled his eyes. Of course Sherlock would have done a thorough search of his home each time he broke in. "There's never been a need for me to keep lubricant in this house as I've never planned to bring a whore or a lover here." _No one's ever meant enough to me for me to bring them home. And then there are little brothers, who bring themselves over…_

"So where's your stash of lube, then?" Sherlock asked. "Besides your office – for those, you know, sessions with Lady Smallwood. You must have some at the club. _Kinky_. How many whores have you fucked over your desk at the Diogenes? And how many of them were MI6?"

"I thought _you_ would be able tell me that based on the number of additional creases in my middle finger, or some such nonsensical guesswork," Mycroft huffed. "You know perfectly well that I don't fuck my agents. To put it in Uncle Rudy's crude terms, you don't shit where you eat."

"Lady Smallwood is a colleague."

"She and I are equals at work. She's not someone whose career or life depends on my word and my decisions. It's completely different."

"Point taken. Anyway, I have a bottle of lube in my coat pocket – I brought it with me, knowing I was coming here. Ah – I dropped my coat on the floor, didn't I…? Oh, there."

The fresh level of bizarreness their exchange had elevated itself to left Mycroft feeling a little unbalanced – possibly from the absence of oxygen, or good sense, at this stratospheric height of lunacy.

"You put a bottle of _lubricant_ in your coat pocket, knowing you were going to your _brother's_ house?" Mycroft asked, in the tone of voice he reserved for speaking to the criminally insane with goldfish-level intellect.

"Yup," Sherlock gasped out, returning to the bed after having stretched out like a very lithe and very naked cat to reach his coat where he'd left it on the floorboards.

"The Freudian psychologists would have a field day with us," Mycroft yielded to the familiar sinking sense of resignation he experienced too often when he was with Sherlock.

"You'd never let them anywhere near us," Sherlock grinned, thumbing open the flip top of the small bottle. "So, do you really want this and all your ejaculate in your expensive sleepwear, or can I just take off your clothes already? Andromeda was chained naked to a rock by the sea – Perseus got a pretty good eyeful at first sight. Mine's wearing Tana lawn pyjamas."

Mycroft groaned for what felt like the fiftieth time since the sun had gone down. "Sherlock, if I'd been chained naked to a rock as a sacrifice, I'm fairly certain the monster would have declined to eat me."

"I think you're selling yourself short," Sherlock declared. " _I'd_ have eaten you."

"You always did have rather poor taste," Mycroft stated dryly.

"Bollocks. I have brilliant taste."

"Says the non-virginal virgin sacrifice who has just uttered the word 'bollocks' like a peasant and is kneeling naked on my bed clutching a bottle of supermarket-variety lube."

"Oh, this brand not good enough for your dick, brother dear?" Sherlock asked.

They regarded each other in silence for two and a half seconds, then one of them snickered – Sherlock, probably. Mycroft followed suit, and all the stiffness dissolved out of him. Sherlock saw him relax – of course he wouldn't miss the signs – and he snapped the bottle of lube shut, tossed it aside, and leaned over to kiss Mycroft deeply.

"You're beautiful, Mycie," Sherlock whispered huskily when he surfaced for air. "You're not pretty, but you're beautiful."

"My blushes, Sherlock," Mycroft huffed.

"Let me," Sherlock tried again, and this time, Mycroft let him unbutton and remove his pyjama top, as well as slip the pair of bottoms off him.

Not being in charge made Mycroft uneasy. But Sherlock must have sensed that – he _had_ to have sensed it from his embarrassment yesterday and today about being the one to be chased, wooed, and won. And Sherlock adapted to his unease now that all the chasing and teasing was over, by sliding off the bed and kneeling on the floor between his legs as Mycroft sat on the edge of the mattress.

Mycroft threaded his fingers through Sherlock's hair as he felt his brother's breathing – and his own – accelerating. It was reminiscent of Serbia, Sherlock very nearly brought to his knees and left at Mycroft's mercy, despite his later bravado about being the one who'd got himself out. _Bullshit, little brother._

"Get on with it, then, if you really want to," Mycroft said gruffly, with more than a touch of fondness in his voice.

Sherlock smirked and kissed Mycroft's cock before laving it with his tongue, then taking his balls carefully into his mouth, making Mycroft pant a little. In a minute, he returned his lips and tongue to his now fully erect member and gave it the most thorough attention. Mycroft inhaled sharply as Sherlock took him in right to the back of his throat, and his breath stuttered back out of his lungs in three staccato beats when he began moving up and down the shaft with only the briefest of pauses to circle the head with his tongue and dip lightly into the slit.

Mycroft cradled the back of Sherlock's head with one hand – not to pull him in or push into him, but to say: _Not so deep, I don't want you to gag._ Sherlock knew what he meant, but hummed a refusal around his cock, sending penetrating vibrations through his flesh that thrummed in his blood and shot up into the core of his body.

"Oh God, Sherlock," Mycroft moaned, leaning forward over the dark head buried in his crotch, wanting to get closer to his brother, and knowing at the same time that the position would force Sherlock not to take him in too deeply.

Sherlock grunted his disapproval, sending more vibrations through Mycroft, but he didn't give in this time, maintaining his posture, cradling Sherlock's head in both his hands now, steadying him, keeping him from taking too much, too fast.

So many nights, alone in his bed in their parents' home, or at university, or here in London, he'd guiltily indulged in illicit fantasies about Sherlock, swiftly dismissing the sensual images from his head back when the boy had been only 14 or 15, his youth compounding what was already a terrible desire on Mycroft's part. He'd let the images in more freely only when Sherlock was older, but even then, it was an impossibility, surely – the young man had nothing but contempt for him. And on the one terrifying occasion that, as a 17-year-old, he had offered himself to him, it had been on such cold, manipulative, transactional terms that Mycroft had been horrified. But he hadn't been able to stop dreaming, not when his brother was the most beautiful thing in his life, the one he'd watched intently for so long that it had birthed an impossible desire that would probably never depart from him as long as he lived.

Not impossible any more, though. For now, at least. Perhaps only for today. But if so, it was more than he might have hoped for, once upon a time.

Sherlock worked him beautifully with his mouth even with the restrictions Mycroft placed on how deep he could take him, and he felt the familiar build-up of tension winding up to the peak that was to come. Sherlock sensed it too, and opportunistically eased Mycroft back so he was forced to lean backwards and support his weight with his hands on the mattress, giving Sherlock more room to work. Given his head, so to speak, he didn't let up at all, quickening the rhythm, increasing the depth, making Mycroft moan over and over again until he climaxed with a stifled cry.

Breathing hard and resisting the urge to fall back bonelessly onto the sheets, Mycroft struggled upright and once more leaned forward to cradle Sherlock's pretty face in his hands, only to see him swallow, and lick a smear of cum off his lips. _And good lord, if that alone wasn't nearly enough to make him hard all over again…_

"Do you want to rinse your mouth?" Mycroft asked hoarsely, panting beside Sherlock's cheek.

Sherlock shook his head. "No, I love the taste of you."

" _God_ , Sherlock…"

"You're perfect, Mycroft. Fucking perfect."

"That mouth of yours…"

"I'll use it on you again, any chance we get," Sherlock purred. "For now, I promise I'll go to sleep if you will too. The sun won't be up for another hour. I'm certain you haven't had enough rest either since you returned from your trip."

"Hmm," Mycroft hummed out his vague assent.

"Make those enemies of yours sweat a little longer over the letters we've retrieved. In fact, you should keep them on tenterhooks until tomorrow, or the day after."

"A suitably evil plan."

They climbed back into bed together and pulled the duvet over them both although it was too warm. Sherlock moulded himself against Mycroft's body and rested his head on his shoulder, one hand idly stroking the soft, curling hair on his brother's chest.

"Your mind's not racing so crazily now," Sherlock murmured sleepily. "That's good. I didn't like it. All that self-blame. You're absurdly hard on yourself."

"I don't think I've worked through it all yet," Mycroft warned, lazily tracing _"Go to sleep"_ in symbols, codes and seven languages on Sherlock's back with the tip of his index finger. "And I'm still not certain that this was the best idea."

"This, us?" Sherlock asked tiredly, scrawling _"Stop overthinking stuff"_ on Mycroft's chest.

"Do you know, the best-known myth I can find of two brothers shagging each other to kingdom come had sex between them imposed _as a punishment_ ," Mycroft sighed.

"Gwydion and Gilfaethwy," Sherlock mumbled. "Found that in your library too. Welsh myth – The Four Branches of the Mabinogi."

"Yes."

"Well, they were punished for raping a virgin girl – which, honestly, I can't see either of us doing," Sherlock muttered.

Mycroft snorted.

"And their punishment was to fuck as animals for three years and bear young to each other," Sherlock noted, barely coherent now. "But you know, animals don't get a whole lot of joy from copulating, so I'll bet they went right back to it for some _fun_ after they resumed human form. You don't have sex with someone for three years in three different bodies and just forget them when you return to your original form, right?"

Mycroft chuckled a little bitterly. "Well, you're forgetting that Gwydion went on to have more incestuous relations, but with their sister this time. In human form."

"Don't think about it. Eurus is still locked up."

"Oh God, Sherlock!" Mycroft snapped, feeling the heat rising to his face as he delivered the sharpest smack he could to his brother's bottom. "Do _not ever again_ mention Eurus when we're in bed together!"

"So you already _know_ there'll be other times we'll be in bed together," Sherlock jumped on Mycroft's words, woken up a bit by the stinging smack. "I wonder what Mummy would say."

" _Sherlock!_ "

"Sorry, couldn't resist making you go totally red all over – your body temperature's gone right up, you know, and we're hot enough as it is," Sherlock laughed. "Right. Promise I'll never mention another blood relative of ours when we've just had mind-blowing incestuous sex."

"You are the _worst_ …"

"And that's why you love me," Sherlock mumbled, drawing a heart on Mycroft's chest. Almost certainly a substitute for sarcastically dashing off a tooth-rottingly sappy air on his violin, which he would surely have done if he'd had his instrument with him.

He fell asleep then, like a lightbulb switching right off, and Mycroft didn't have the heart to wake him with another sharp smack. (Anyone else would have been dealt a flogging.) As always, he was the exception to all the rules. His fantasies about Sherlock had come to life, for better or for worse – and perhaps only for now. But even if it turned out to be just for a day, Mycroft would take what he could get, after the twenty years he'd spent in the wilderness of despair.

* * *

 **Note:  
** Mycroft's line about his blushes echoes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Holmes when he says "My blushes, Watson!" in _The Valley of Fear_. But unlike Watson, who playfully tears Holmes down after the latter expects praise, Sherlock here means what he says to Mycroft.


	5. Desperation, Defence

**Desperation, Defence**

Desperation. It was what drove people who would otherwise haughtily summon you to their offices to come begging for an appointment.

As Mycroft's assistants were highly skilled at implying to callers that Mr Holmes was out – out of the country, in fact – cleaning up the shit _someone else_ had stupidly scattered everywhere (not in so many words, of course), it only fed the fear of those someone elses.

With the powder keg of those two-decade-old letters, and other incriminating documents he and Anthea had quietly unearthed, Mycroft sat pretty and made himself entirely unavailable to three of the most senior and influential voices in the Cabinet who had insinuated that he should be removed from his position. And that Eurus should be put down as if she were a racehorse who had outlived her usefulness.

The Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary, and the International Trade Secretary were the figures in question. The first two had their names on the Patterson letters. The third had no link with the case, but was a close personal and political ally of the Foreign Secretary, so had added his voice to theirs.

Prime Ministers, Secretaries of State and entire Cabinets could come and go with elections, scandals and changes in the wind, but Mycroft, who stood beyond party lines and loyalties, would not be done away with so easily. Only days ago, feeling raw and inept, he had wondered if he might fall to his enemies after all. But with the pieces of evidence firmly in his possession now, and surprising changes on the personal front that made him curious enough about their future developments, he decided he would plan to be around for some time yet.

When at last Anthea informed an anxious Foreign Secretary that "Mr Holmes has just returned to London and has back-to-back meetings all day, but he will have a break of about twenty minutes at his Whitehall office, during which you _may_ be able to catch him there _if you're lucky_ ", Mycroft knew the man would darken his door at least ten minutes before the suggested time.

He did.

"Holmes," Eldon Pennyfather addressed him as he was shown into the Whitehall office where Mycroft oversaw the more superficial aspects of his Joint Intelligence Committee responsibilities. "You've been a hard man to reach."

Pennyfather was valiantly attempting to maintain the high-handed tone he'd used with Mycroft for several weeks. But he wasn't fooling Mycroft, who could hear and see a hundred small indications of fear that he would become a cause of embarrassment for their government.

Ten years older than Mycroft, Pennyfather had been acquainted with him since they were in MI6, and had tried to talk down to him from the start. Although the fellow hadn't been completely incompetent as a case officer, he had never been outstanding either. When he finally understood that he would never, in ten thousand years, come close to matching the depth and breadth of Mycroft's genius, and felt the bite of jealousy at his junior officer's rapid rise, he'd left MI6 and turned to politics as a career with a better chance of bringing him glory. He was intelligent and capable in his own way, but in the end, it was his talent for sucking up to the right people that had really paid off.

His rise, however, had been more than matched by Mycroft's own progression. Even in his elevated position, Pennyfather had feared Mycroft for his known power in the JIC, as well as the unknown authority and influence he was whispered to have at every level of the British government – no one whom Pennyfather was on friendly terms with had the security clearance to demarcate for him the exact extent and nature of Mycroft's power. When Mycroft had stumbled in the Sherrinford incident, Pennyfather had been quick to draw his dagger, only to have to hastily sheathe it when the problem of the Patterson letters became, for him, a greater problem than "that Holmes kid", as he had called Mycroft in MI6.

"Minister," Mycroft greeted Pennyfather formally from where he stood beside his desk, neatly aligning the edges of three documents and inserting them into a folder which he then locked in a filing cabinet at the side of the room. He gestured Pennyfather towards one of the chairs in front of his desk, which the Foreign Secretary seated himself in after a moment's hesitation.

"Holmes, have you any idea how many calls I've fielded from the Chinese ambassador in the past three days, or how many times Jane Hartson has harassed me from Beijing?" Pennyfather blurted out, trying for sternness, but betrayed by a tremor. "Not to mention I've begun to hear rumblings from the human rights groups who have, God knows how, got wind of the Zhu Zheng matter."

Jane Hartson – Britain's ambassador to China, whose appointment had been proposed by the previous Foreign Minister – had never been on the best terms with Pennyfather. His inconsistency, she had been known to say, exasperated her. And Luo Qifan, the Chinese ambassador in London, had a rather cold relationship with Pennyfather. As it happened, Mycroft was on excellent terms with both ambassadors, and Pennyfather knew it – which made him frantic for his assistance on two fronts: ensuring that the Patterson letters never saw the light of day, and calming the stormy diplomatic seas.

Smoothly seating himself behind his desk, Mycroft coolly considered the Foreign Minister's increasingly flustered speech.

"Hartson and the Chinese ambassador have hinted that the Chinese government wants to make a formal demand for Zhu Zheng's immediate extradition – they're _extremely_ keen on it because they've suspected him of corruption and criminal activities for a long time, but were unable to implicate him during his father's trial in 2000," Patterson rolled on. "But if we give in, there's little doubt he will be sentenced to death in his home country. This will agitate the rights groups, as well as make us look as if we don't even have the legal and political sovereignty to retain for prosecution a foreign citizen accused of a crime in our country. On the other hand, if we don't extradite him, our relationship with China will be strained, and if that matter I sought your help about also comes to light, things will not be pleasant."

 _Not pleasant for_ you _, you mean,_ Mycroft thought.

"Have you… have your teams… did you manage to retrieve those… letters?" Pennyfather asked, his urgency making itself obvious at last.

"Minister," Mycroft said, pitching his voice at just the right volume to force Pennyfather to lean forward and strain to catch every syllable. "Might it not seem ironic for us to act concerned about the possibility of a Chinese citizen at risk of being sentenced to death in his home country even as some of us insinuate that we should overturn Britain's abolishment of the death penalty so that we can execute a British citizen in cold blood, on our own shores?"

 _Eurus, put down like an animal._

"Holmes, if you're talking about the fallout from that island facility incident, that's nothing – that's over," Pennyfather said nervously, in a rush. "I'm no longer pursuing or even discussing the matter with my Cabinet colleagues – except to dissuade them from continuing with the proposal, of course. You have our full support."

"Indeed?" Mycroft asked coolly. "Then I believe you would have no objection to rescinding the instructions you gave Sir Edwin to bypass my team and submit reports only to you about the operations in Iraq and Syria, telling him that I might not be in the right frame of mind to process the information?"

"You've had a _lot_ on your plate these past weeks…" Pennyfather began.

"Not so much that I can't see that the Iraq and Syria ops are a fresh can of worms you've managed to help pry open by not discouraging our assets from murdering British subjects on foreign soil. And it _will_ create a public mess in a matter of months because it has already gone too far. At this point, all I can do is to mitigate the exposure and its implications, but at least I _can_ mitigate it," Mycroft stated coldly.

"How did you even…" Pennyfather began. "Never mind. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Yes – I'll have them reinstate the usual processes."

"I have the document ready for you to sign," Mycroft said, all business, extracting a sheet of paper from a folder by his right hand and pushing it over the surface of the table to Pennyfather, as if he were sliding a chess piece over a board.

Pennyfather glanced over the document and murmured a protest: "This not only restores the existing processes, it _extends_ your authority to…"

"Minister, I have secured the letters, and they will remain forever unseen by human eyes if all remains well with me and my team, which requires that I have the resources necessary to keep us all well and _safe_ ," Mycroft stated icily, aiming the barrel-end of a fountain pen at Pennyfather.

"But…"

"And I shall make two very cordial phone calls to Jane and Ambassador Luo to smooth things for now. It will mean that unless unexpected new developments occur in the Zhu Zheng case, they will plague you less, and may even help to forestall formal demands for extradition by soothing whatever feathers may be starting to get ruffled in Beijing."

Pennyfather signed.

Half an hour after the Foreign Secretary left the JIC office, Mycroft had more fun with his next visitor, Bernard Walbrook, the Home Secretary. Initially, they went through a similar game over the letters that Mycroft had played with Pennyfather, minus the diplomatic angle. But Walbrook, another former SIS colleague, had done something more insidious than Pennyfather. Anthea had dug up the truth a few days ago, when the Home Office gave Mycroft's team unfettered access to all its systems during those hours of Walbrook's greatest desperation to track down Carter, Zhu Zheng, and the letters.

Mycroft now slid out his declaration of war from the folder by his elbow and laid it on the desk in front of Walbrook, who was already looking red-faced about the Patterson case.

"I had wondered how the late Sherrinford governor dared, without authorisation, to bring psychologists and psychiatrists to my sister's cell," Mycroft said levelly. "Regardless of whether he had been brainwashed by Eurus at that point, his personality was such that I believe he would still have attempted to seek clearance from someone whom he thought should approve his proposal to have her studied more closely. A little research led me to this sequence of e-mail messages. It seems _you_ cleared the requests. Without consulting me."

Walbrook was now turning from red-faced to pale, and appeared to have lost the power of speech.

He went even paler when Mycroft added: "I'll do you the courtesy of informing you that I have given the essential details of these exchanges to the relevant members of the Cabinet Office, but have emphasised that no further action should be taken on this matter. After all, we can safely say that no one other than myself could have dreamt, before the Sherrinford catastrophe, how unutterably dangerous my sister was."

"Mycroft, I didn't realise…" Walbrook began.

"I know you didn't, Bernard," Mycroft stated.

Walbrook was closer in age to him than Pennyfather was, and when they'd been in MI6, he had behaved more like a peer of Mycroft's than a senior officer. They were still on first-name terms. But while they'd got along reasonably well in the SIS and after Walbrook had first moved into politics, they had inevitably butted heads after Walbrook had become Home Secretary while Mycroft was manoeuvring every thread of the services that fell under the purview of the Home Office. Walbrook had been particularly miffed by Mycroft's use of police resources, and had long suspected, although he had no proof, that Mycroft had pulled more than just a few law-enforcement strings over the years to protect Sherlock.

As with Pennyfather earlier, though, Walbrook had no defence to put up when Mycroft pushed documents over the desk for him to sign. These gave Mycroft final approval over every single staff and contractor appointment that related to Sherrinford, as well as over every visitor to the island facility. They also restored oversight to Mycroft's team in areas pertaining to MI5, the police, and visas and immigration that Walbrook had attempted to withdraw from him.

That was the second enemy down.

The third person Mycroft was ready to see that day was the International Trade Secretary, who was not implicated in the Patterson letters, but whose friendship with Pennyfather had prompted him to quietly lobby among Cabinet members for a legal way to end Eurus' life.

Mycroft had no incriminating documents against Ted Holt, who planned to retire in a few years. But what he had was leverage that could make the Chinese government more likely to look favourably on the new trade and economic deals Britain was proposing. Some of China's upcoming economic-technological development areas looked highly suitable for entry and investment by a large number of British companies looking to expand their reach in that market, and they wanted in. Which meant that positive feeling on China's side wouldn't be amiss.

Still, Holt had no very urgent reason to come knocking on Mycroft's door. However, he had undoubtedly been given a nudge by Pennyfather to do so, as Mycroft had hinted that he might be able to offer the Chinese government something that might make them… well, if not actively _happy_ , then at least _not_ disgruntled with Britain.

"Valuable historical artifacts?" Holt asked Mycroft.

"In the course of investigating a case involving a crime committed in London by a Chinese national, the Yard recovered a cache of jade and gold that includes what we believe to be long-lost jewellery that had belonged to Ming and Qing empresses," Mycroft revealed. "The Chinese government has been seeking these items for more than two decades, and we believe that these are the very items. They include fabulously elaborate gold phoenix hair ornaments that were almost certainly made for and worn by Ming empresses, and jade bangles of peerless quality in colour, clarity and carving, with designs suggesting that they were made for Qing empresses. They were, apparently, illegally exported from China decades ago, and as good as lost to the world. But now that we have them, and are in a position to return them, we should at least _not_ be in the doghouse with this important trade partner of ours."

Holt sighed. "Eldon has hinted to me, although he did not go into much detail, that he may be personally implicated in a problem that could prove fatal to some of our trade deals if you don't handle this matter your way. In addition, I have just heard from Lady Smallwood the truth about how that security failure occurred on the island facility that I never knew of until a few weeks ago. Therefore, before you even ask, I'll say that I won't press the matter further with regard to this sister of yours – whose existence I also never heard of until a few weeks ago."

"Thank you, Minister," Mycroft said with just enough sincerity to keep Holt on his side, and just enough coolness to hint that he could, if he wished, force him to back down anyway.

"About the cache of antiques…" Holt began curiously. "The fact that you're proposing to return them means that this whole matter was never about keeping the items from China, was it?"

"No, Minister," Mycroft confirmed. "The fate of the antiques was of no interest to us – until now, of course, when their reappearance and restoration to their land of origin could buy us goodwill. Our only concern was and is that it must never be known that individuals who now form part of our Cabinet, and who were members of our intelligence community in the 1990s and 2000s, ever knew a thing about the antiques. It becomes worse when, upon further questioning, we find that they convinced a deputy chief of MI6 at the time to back them up in their lie when they were asked in the early 2000s to submit a report on the Patterson case. The report went up to the MI6 chief, then to the Foreign Office, where it formed part of our government's official response to the Chinese government's queries about the antiques. And that former deputy chief can no longer be held accountable, because he not only retired some time ago, but passed away from lung cancer shortly after that."

"I see," Holt said thoughtfully. "Thank you for being frank with me about the essential facts of the case, Mr Holmes."

Third opponent down.

Others lurked, but these three held the most sway, and Mycroft could manage the rest to diminish the threat to Eurus' life and his own influence over British intelligence, security and diplomacy. He felt as if he'd just slain a trio of dangerous enemies in a single stroke – perhaps like the Norseman who was said in one version of the Irish myth to have beheaded the three sons of Uisliu – Noisiu, Ainle and Ardan – in one blow? Of course, in other versions, it was Eogan mac Durthacht, king of Fernmag, who speared through two men in one go – Noisiu, and Fiachu the son of Fergus, who had been the brothers' and Deirdriu's guarantor of safe passage to Ulster.

It wasn't a pleasant likening, unfortunately, for those slayings had come about through Ulster king Conchubur mac Nessa's dishonourable betrayal of the three brothers, Deirdriu, and Fergus. Mycroft was rarely on the side of people who behaved dishonourably. Nor was he much of a warrior. If Sherlock knew what grand mythological lines he was thinking along, he would laugh mercilessly and scoff that it would be a hell of a lot more appropriate for Mycroft to liken himself instead to the _Brave Little Tailor_ who killed seven _flies_ at one go.

But ever since Mycroft had left Sherlock asleep in his bed four mornings ago with a kiss on his cheek, then returned home late that evening to find him gone without so much as a note, his brother had given no indication of wishing to return to their former style of conducting their relationship through hostility, clashes and jabs.

On the other hand (with Sherlock, there was _always_ a caveat) he had communicated nothing either about what their relationship was now, or would be. No exchange of endearments had been forthcoming, no heart-to-heart conversations, no requests for dinner dates, not even any surprise visits purely for sex, and _certainly_ no flowers. Perhaps Sherlock, having satisfied his curiosity, had decided that was that.

 _How unusual,_ Mycroft mused. _A one-night stand with my_ sibling _, who will never be out of my life._

They never did things like anyone else, did they?

The buzzing of Mycroft's phone startled him from his thoughts, and for a second, he thought Sherlock was calling him. But no, that would have been too much to hope for.

"Hello, Mummy," Mycroft answered pleasantly, as he always did for his mother. "How are you feeling now?"

"I'm quite well, Myc," she greeted him with a briskness that told him she was trying to be her usual bubbly self, but was failing because she was worn out from having had to nurse his father through the flu for days, only to catch it from him and be laid up in bed herself. "There's still a lingering soreness in my throat, but nothing lozenges won't tackle. Your father's been very thoughtful and helpful, but he's still being racked by his pesky cough too."

"What can I do for you?"

"We were hoping to visit Eurus this Saturday. Would that be possible?" she asked.

"I'll speak with the interim governor to make sure, but there should be no difficulty," Mycroft said.

"Good. I don't suppose you and Sherlock were able to visit her in the last three weeks that we couldn't?"

"Sherlock saw her ten days ago, when I was out of the country," Mycroft replied. "But I was away for two weeks, and there's been much to do since I returned."

"Myc, I know you're always frightfully busy and terribly important, but she's your sister, and she can hardly come to you, can she?"

"I know, Mummy…" he began.

"I do wish you'd make more of an effort with her instead of leaving it all to Sherlock and his violin. After all, _you're_ the one who kept her there all by herself."

She sounded weary and exasperated. Mycroft knew it was her fatigue and the lingering illness that were making her snappish, but it still wounded him. _Not forgiven yet, then, am I? Far from it, it seems._

"I'm sorry, Myc," his mother seemed to become aware, in seconds, that she had perhaps been unfair. "I'm tired, and I'm still not well."

"I know," Mycroft said softly. "Please get some rest. I'll make the arrangements for Saturday, and I'll give you the time and the transport details once I confirm them."

"Thank you. Sorry, Myc."

"Please take a nap now, if you can. And take those lozenges."

"I will, thanks. Goodbye, love."

He ended the call and tried to steady his breathing. It wasn't working. Because no one could get under your skin like your mother could. ( _"Thou art my warrior; / I holp to frame thee."_ ) However powerful and hard-hearted you had made yourself, your mother could home in unerringly on your weaknesses to rattle you, as Coriolanus famously knew: _"O, mother, mother, / What have you done?"_

Mycroft's victories over his enemies felt like very little now. The feeling would pass, of course. It always did, eventually. But for now, he knew some of the misery his foes must have experienced. Except that while theirs was the gnawing desperation of fear and guilt, his was the dull ache of not living up to his mother's expectations, and there was no one here who could defend him or show him mercy in the face of her disappointment with him.

* * *

Defence. A necessity, always, against Eurus.

 _Never let your guard down. Open yourself to her, but never lower your defences,_ he reminded himself. _Impossible? No. I can pull it off. I, of all people, can do it. Lay myself bare before her without letting her see what must not be seen. Unlock all my barriers without ever letting her in. Offer my complete honesty to her without letting her know what must not be known._

Sherlock drew his bow across the strings, playing himself for his sister, as she did the same for him.

The last time he had visited her, he had done so alone after getting clearance through Anthea during the period that Mycroft had been away. He'd been unsettled, uneasy, and feeling unexpectedly angry with himself about his treatment of Mycroft, and he'd have been damned if he'd allowed Eurus to read the final truth of it.

So he had laid himself bare – the unease, the discomfort, the emotion – playing to inconsistent time signatures throughout, taking his expressions through _agitato_ , _mesto_ , _forza_ , _precipitato_ , _feurig_ , sweeping through whole passages that never resolved, nary a rest between them, spiking into the sharps and flats. And not once did he allow himself to express _Mycroft_. He opened himself up to her, but raised the invisible ramparts of his heart by consciously thinking: _John, John, John…_

She had queried him, her violin sending out incomplete, unbalanced phrases inviting him to round them out with his beats, echoing his sequences partway and waiting for him to finish them in answer to her. He had responded honestly/dishonestly, playing his guilt, his repentance, his desire, extracting from his soul everything he had ever done to hurt John, so that at no point would he communicate "Mycroft" to her. She knew all about everything he'd ever done to John, so this was giving her nothing she wouldn't already have considered; she didn't know about his evolving relationship with Mycroft, and he planned to keep it that way.

But today, their parents were well enough to visit her again, and they were here, with Mycroft. Which meant that Sherlock had to work through the new puzzle of how to open himself to Eurus without letting her know about him and their brother, while their brother was right there with them.

Because from the moment he'd met Mycroft and his parents at the Whitehall helipad this morning, he'd sensed a brittleness in his brother that troubled him. Some of the chaos that had been in his head days ago seemed to have flown back in there. It wasn't work, or the letters – no, all that had gone well – Sherlock could tell from the set of his shoulders. It was something else, something Sherlock could read in the slope of Mycroft's back, the angle of his neck which he could see even under the scarf he had given him … was it about him, Sherlock? Having second thoughts about them? Surely not – not with that gentleness in his eyes when they rested on Sherlock before he tore his own gaze away. It was… _oh_. Mummy. Damn it.

But it was also Sherlock, wasn't it? He hadn't reached out to Mycroft for days, but that was because he knew he'd be at war on the work front. More importantly, Sherlock had known their parents would be asking for a visit to Eurus very soon, now that they were over the flu. He and Mycroft thus could not risk having even the shadow of a molecule of each other on their persons or on their psyches in a sexual way. Eurus would have detected it in a trice.

Sherlock ached to say something to Mycroft, and to hold him. But he resolutely did not speak to, look at, or touch him at all, though it agitated him to know that he probably thought it meant Sherlock was pulling away from him again. That he'd used him for sex and experimentation, then pulled away.

But it couldn't be helped right now. So in front of Eurus, the glass of her cell between them, he channelled his feelings instead into the image of that shield he carried with him at all times – John. He poured his distress into thoughts of the high points and deepest darkness of their friendship; his knowledge that there had been and still were times when John utterly detested him, but that was all right, because even through the loathing John never stopped loving him deeply; the moments when Sherlock despised John for his blind simplicity of thought, but that was all right too, because despising him for a few seconds at a time had never undermined Sherlock's unbreakable foundation of love and respect for him.

He lowered his barriers while keeping Eurus out, replying to her probing sequences with notes of the utmost clarity. Steadily, broadly, with feeling, he played his melodic answers to her almost entirely in the major scale, his part of the musical conversation impressing them all with an odd naivete.

Glass or no glass between them, Eurus had the keenest senses – East Wind that she was, working her cold fingers into every crevice, and Sherlock knew it. But as he'd stayed away from Mycroft for days, there was nothing of their older brother that she would smell on him, see on him, no marks, no traces, not an atom. Rosie and John were all over him – he'd made sure of that – and he had them and Mary on his mind as he drew out his sweetest notes. Everything clear, everything open, even, thoughtful, balanced, complete, adding only the smallest strain hinting at an undercurrent of sorrow for the mortality that weighed them all down.

 _Everything ends. We all end._

He paused and looked at her, asking her to tell him about her.

She quietened it down to _pianissimo_ , offering him long, even phrases that were _adagio_ , _tranquillo_ , disrupted briefly here and there with tremulousness, conjuring a sense of balance and stillness occasionally shaken by uncertainty. _"I am stable. I am not safe. I am well. I will never be well. I know everything. I know nothing."_

He drew his bow over his strings in a _maestoso_ response. _"You are a goddess who knows all, you are a demon who mars all, you are a little girl who understands nothing of everything the goddess in you knows."_

Still _pianissimo_ , she gave him a passage, _traurig_ , and he knew she was saying: _"You are angry with me."_

Looking directly at her, unwavering, he continued _maestoso_ , _mezzo forte_ : _"A part of me will always be angry with you for killing the child who was my best friend."_

Plaintively: _"I know."_

Steadily: _"Another part of me will never stop loving you because you are in pain, you are unbalanced, you are still a child who is so lost, and you are my sister."_

Solemnly: _"I know."_

Emphatically: _"I am still trying to save you. All of us here in this room are trying to save you."_

Impatiently: _"You can't."_

Forcefully: _"We have always done what others can't."_

With agitation: _"I am the best at doing what cannot be done; you can't overcome that."_

Confidently: _"Even mortals sometimes outwit the gods."_

Eurus lowered her violin and bow without answering him, and looked at all of them in turn – Sherlock, their father, their mother, and Mycroft. Then she turned away and set her instrument down.

Sherlock spoke out loud to her: "Until next time, then."

Their parents by now understood that Eurus was telling them it was time to leave.

"I love you, darling," Mummy said. "Never forget that."

"Sweetheart, we'll see you again soon," Daddy added.

Mycroft said nothing, and Sherlock said nothing more, before they left the cell.

They made their way to the administrative block, where Mycroft conferred briefly with the interim governor, then they collected their coats and cases, and made their way to the helipad.

No one spoke during the flight to Whitehall. But when they alighted, Mummy indicated that she would like to discuss Eurus with them. Mycroft's JIC office at Whitehall was not the most appropriate for family discussions as it was in an office environment, so he ordered the Bentley limousine with the four-seater passenger compartment to take them all to his bunker office beneath the Diogenes Club.

Even in the car, Sherlock could already tell that Mummy was gearing up to be unnecessarily optimistic. "She seemed better, don't you think, boys?" she asked, looking at them from her forward-facing seat while Sherlock and Mycroft maintained a slightly uncomfortable silence in their backward-facing ones. For such an incredibly intelligent woman, she was painfully blind when it came to her own children.

Their father tried to temper her optimism with a more realistic take: "There are ups and downs, dear – and I'm afraid there will _always_ be ups and downs, never a steady progression."

This got their parents debating the matter between themselves, leaving Sherlock and Mycroft in relative peace, looking out through their respective windows. Sherlock was trying very hard not to reach for him, and he knew it was the same for his brother.

At the underground office, however, after a lamentably brief half-hour's distraction provided by the food and tea Mycroft had ordered in advance before they'd driven away from Whitehall, things rapidly deteriorated.

"Myc, there must be _someone_ who can help Eurus attain some measure of stability so that she can perhaps move to another facility – I cannot bear the thought of my daughter spending the rest of her life in that awful cell," Mummy sighed, setting her cup of tea down on its saucer.

"I'm afraid rehabilitation is beyond her," Mycroft said carefully. "She can perhaps arrive at some equilibrium if she accepts her life as it is, but she can never be permitted unsupervised contact with people who cannot mentally defend themselves against her – and that covers nearly everyone apart from myself and Sherlock."

"Of what practical application is your ability to mentally defend yourself against her when you don't ever _speak_ to her when we visit? You're the only one of us who never says a word to her! Why can't you say something kind?"

"Eurus wouldn't want to hear 'something kind' from me, Mummy," Mycroft smiled thinly.

Her temper was already frayed from the lingering effects of the flu, which were harder to shake off at her age. She set the cup and saucer down on the table, then snapped at Mycroft: "I don't think you're trying hard enough! What's the use of all your genius if you can't even help your own sister? She's been locked up in one place or another since she was five years old! _Five_ , Mycroft! It's horrible to think how desperately frightened and lonely she must have been! I _still_ don't fully understand this – once Rudy told you she was alive, how could you _not_ have told us?"

"Mummy," Mycroft said calmly, although Sherlock could see how pale he was turning. "You and Father had mourned her for ten years by that time, and had made your peace with her death. We had ceased to discuss her, not only for Sherlock's sake, but also for our own. Did you expect me to rip open every last one of your old wounds and have you mourn her all over again? Because by then, the little daughter you had known was well and truly dead, and the person she had become was not the Eurus you had loved."

"Mycroft Holmes!" Mummy cried. "All you do is spend your days and years playing at being awfully important to the rest of the world, while your own sister rots in a prison cell. Your political games mean nothing – _are_ nothing – if you can't save your own flesh and blood! You truly are _terribly_ limited in your abilities and options, aren't you?"

Mycroft was barely holding it together. Sherlock could see how _hurt_ he was by their mother's words, and he couldn't endure it any more.

"Mummy! That's enough!" Sherlock thundered, shocking them all into stunned silence at the sheer fury in his voice. "You have no idea – _no idea_ – how much Mycroft has done for Eurus after the damage Uncle Rudy caused. You don't have a clue how much he has done to keep you, and Dad, and me, and the _whole fucking world_ safe all these years. You haven't the least idea, have you, that _NO ONE in the entire world_ could have done better by Eurus than Mycroft did? You don't know how much he's sacrificed for all of us. How much he _loves_ all of us. You just _don't know_ , do you?"

"Sherlock…" Mummy sounded dazed.

"Please leave," Sherlock told his parents. "Please. Now."

"Oh, Mycroft, I'm sorry…" Mummy whispered. "I didn't… I'm _sorry_ , Myc. I wasn't thinking…"

"Dad, please take Mummy home," Sherlock said firmly. "I don't think she's recovered from her illness yet."

Sherlock rang Anthea at once from his mobile phone, asked her to make sure the car was ready _right now_ at the Diogenes to drive his parents home to Surrey, and strode to the office door. He opened it, and held it open, glaring at their parents until they picked up their coats and his mother's handbag and walked out of the office in time to see Anthea hurrying down the narrow passageway towards them.

"Mr Holmes, Mrs Holmes," she greeted them politely. "I'll walk you to the car."

"Goodbye Mummy. Bye, Dad," Sherlock said firmly. "Anthea, _please_ ensure that _no one_ disturbs Mycroft by phone or in person for the rest of the day, even if World War Three breaks out."

Anthea stared at him in astonishment for a few seconds – most probably because she had never heard the word "please" from Sherlock. But she promptly recovered and nodded to indicate that she understood, and would make sure no one bothered Mycroft.

He stepped back into the office, shut and bolted the door behind him and turned to face Mycroft, only to be caught completely off-guard by the look of utter surprise on his brother's face.

They stood there, metres apart, staring at each other for several seconds as Sherlock read it all over Mycroft: He'd thought Sherlock didn't care about him. Oh God, he'd _really_ imagined, at least for a while, that Sherlock had just used him for sex and dropped him like a piece of burning coal. And he'd never, in his wildest dreams, expected that Sherlock would ever stand up for him against their mother.

"Mycroft," Sherlock whispered, covering the ground between them in three long strides and lifting both his hands to gently cup his brother's face while pressing his forehead to his. "I'll never let Mummy do that to you again. I'll never let her be _that wrong_ about you again."

Mycroft was shaking, and this, in turn, shook Sherlock to the core. Mycroft, his Colossus, his tower of ice, was shaking because nothing could shatter you like family. Nothing could break you like love.

"Even if no one knows, I know," Sherlock said softly. "I _know_ you."

He felt his brother's hands come up to rest on his waist, thumbs smoothing over the silk of his shirt. Their faces already in contact, Mycroft angled his head and touched a kiss to Sherlock's lips. Sherlock kissed him back, tenderly, protectively, feeding him courage, giving him heart. It was almost non-sexual, in a curious way, despite their tongues tangling and hands starting to roam. It felt as if they were simply making contact, connecting, telling each other without verbal words: _"I'm here. Right here. For you."_

Mycroft eased out of the kiss, wrapped one hand around the back of Sherlock's head, curved the other over his right hip, and slowly pulled him in until they were resting their heads on each other's shoulders. Sherlock's hands went around to the smooth, silky back panel of Mycroft's waistcoat, and they just held on, breathing the scent of their skin over their shirt collars.

"They're not entirely undeserved, you know, Mummy's accusations," Mycroft murmured. "It's not as if I wouldn't have known how to disobey Uncle Rudy and gently break the news about Eurus. But I wanted to avoid all the emotional untidiness. And it's true that I did prioritise my responsibilities to the world over my family – I put you at risk repeatedly. I could also have reached out to Eurus on a much more emotional level instead of treating her like a weapon – or worse, like a dog of war I could parcel out rewards to."

"Mycroft, that's…"

"Oh, Sherlock, I'm not under the illusion that connecting with her childish emotions would have healed her or saved her – she was beyond that from the beginning. She was born brilliantly, fatally flawed. But perhaps it would have tempered her viciousness a little. Maybe fewer people would have died in this last catastrophe."

"Don't second-guess yourself. It's not like you. Eurus was and is unbalanced. She is my sister, and I will protect her, but I know, you know, and she knows that she's a monster, and there was never any way to predict how she might have responded to anything."

"We're each monsters in our own way, aren't we?" Mycroft huffed a little bitterly. "God, no wonder Mummy feels so bloody disappointed."

"Shh. She loves you. You know that, don't you? She loves you _so_ much, and she's always so damned _proud_ of you."

"Funnily enough, I _do_ know that," Mycroft chuckled.

"She just gets tetchy when she feels unwell and helpless and thinks she isn't doing the best she can for her daughter."

"That she does."

"And if we're all monsters, then she's the monsters' mother."

Mycroft laughed. "Which of us is Grendel, then?"

"We're a Cerberus-like version of Grendel?" Sherlock suggested.

Mycroft laughed again, a sound that Sherlock had never thought in the past would fill him with joy.

They leaned back and looked at each other through eyes that were the colour of a stormy day, then they dipped in for another kiss, one with the delicious flavour of Mycroft's brief, hard-won laughter on his lips, and luxuriated in its warmth.

Sherlock felt something shift between them as they explored each other's mouths as if kissing were new to them. What had changed was that Mycroft had never dreamt, or dared to hope, that Sherlock would ever be _on his side_ ; and the discovery that he was seemed to make Mycroft soft, and warm, and open. But not in the fatalistic way of before, when he hadn't appeared to care if Sherlock would damage him or destroy him, as long as it was Sherlock doing it. This was the openness of assurance that his brother, his lover, was not only _with_ him, but would act in defence of him.

He slowly began to undo the knot of Mycroft's tie, and Mycroft helped him. Sherlock's fingers next felt their way methodically through the waistcoat buttons from top to bottom, carefully slipping the pocket watch chain free, and Mycroft's hands just as methodically saw to Sherlock's shirt buttons.

They moved apart to look at each other again as Sherlock slipped Mycroft's waistcoat off him and put it and the pocket watch carefully on the desk beside them. As he undid his brother's shirt buttons, and Mycroft tugged Sherlock's shirt out of his trousers, Sherlock asked: "What would you like me to do, Mycroft? What do you need? Just tell me."

Mycroft, working at the fastenings at the waistband of Sherlock's trousers, offered a smile that Sherlock had never seen before – a remarkable blend of mischief, desire and adoration. And he said: "Do with me whatever you will. That's what I need."

"Are you sure?" Sherlock asked doubtfully, knowing how much Mycroft needed to be in control.

Mycroft reached up to caress Sherlock's face and draw him in for another kiss before he eased him back to say: "I think I can trust the hero who came to my defence like no one else in the world ever has, to do whatever he pleases with me."


	6. Relief, Revelation

**Relief, Revelation**

Relief. Sherlock's fingers pressed in deeper, and Mycroft moaned: " _Ohhh_ , Sherlock, this is _perfect_."

"I could tell you needed it," Sherlock murmured, concentrating on the spot he was working on.

"Where did you learn how to do this?" he sounded slightly strangled – in a blissful way – as Sherlock shifted his digits by half an inch.

"I've never tried it on a living person, but you know… I know _bodies_."

"You mapped out these points on _corpses_ in the morgue?" Mycroft groaned into the pillow. "I doubt they gave you _feedback_."

"Corpses give plenty of feedback – the marks that show up after you've bruised, or cut, or flogged the… well, not the _life_ out of them… but you get the picture," Sherlock explained as he applied more pressure. "That's why I have to handle dead bodies much more carefully than living ones."

Mycroft turned his head on the pillow to glare at Sherlock the best he could from his awkward position, saying a little stiffly: "So you're handling me more carelessly than you would a corpse."

"No, Mycroft. I'm being _exquisitely_ careful with you," Sherlock replied with a seriousness and depth of tone that made Mycroft colour. "I mean that living bodies heal; corpses don't – they stay damaged. You're alive, and you're changing and healing. You'll heal."

If there weren't at least three layers of intended meaning to those last two words, Mycroft would be surprised.

But Sherlock was working on his lower back now, and he had the luxury of allowing his mind to go completely blank for a while as his brother kneaded the pads of his thumbs into a place that went to the core of the tension Mycroft had been feeling in his spine since Sherrinford.

"That's… _ahhhhh_ …" Mycroft moaned again.

Sherlock chuckled as he made tiny circular movements with his thumbs over the area.

"I've observed a mild stiffness and imbalance in your hips and back for some weeks now," Sherlock said, sinking his thumbs into the flesh on either side of Mycroft's spine. "Your iliapsoas compound muscles mostly lie too deep to access directly, but this is where they meet your vertebrae, from the twelfth thoracic to the fifth lumbar. It's a good spot for stimulating them to relieve the discomfort they may be causing."

"Some days, it feels as if my back will snap and slide off to the right," Mycroft confessed.

"Hmm. When you turn over later, I'll work on other points diagonally above your navel to indirectly access these muscles," Sherlock told him. "Your back and neck looked all wrong to me this morning at the helipad. It took a good deal of self-control not to get my hands on you right there and then to unknot you."

Mycroft's sigh expressed a combination of immediate relief from the physical tension, a general resignation about everything that had been causing him pain, and an ironic observation of Sherlock's nature: "As you've always had very _little_ self-control, I won't flatter myself that there was a lot of it in the first place for you to use up to keep from flinging yourself at me."

He jumped when Sherlock gave his boxer-clad bottom a sharp pinch, mirroring what Mycroft had done to him in bed a week ago.

"You have no idea how much restraint I needed today," Sherlock grumbled.

" _Ouch_ ," Mycroft protested dryly. "So much for being 'exquisitely careful' with me. I don't suppose _that_ pinch accessed some mysterious reflexology point?"

"Oh, yes, it did – the one that connects directly to the deep fount of your limitless sarcasm," Sherlock huffed. "I was _exceedingly_ restrained today, despite what you might think was all evidence to the contrary."

Mycroft took the time to consider an acceptable response, finally settling on a gentle reply to test the waters: "I know you were, Sherlock. Even so, when we've all calmed down – and sooner, rather than later – I hope you'll tell Mummy you're sorry for using such language on her."

Sherlock too was silent for a few seconds, but eventually murmured: "Mm, I know. I will."

No tantrums. No snapping petulantly or viciously. No childish refusal. He really seemed to be growing up at last.

"But for now, turn your mind off a bit," Sherlock continued. "I can talk you through what I'm doing, though you don't have to think if you don't want to, or answer if you don't want to, or do anything except relax."

"I _am_ relaxed. I think I can safely say that even when I've had physiotherapy in the past after sustaining injuries, no one has ever touched me like this," Mycroft said. "Not that physiotherapy is _at all_ relaxing, mind you."

"No routine massages for you, I imagine," Sherlock noted.

"Too risky," was all he said, but he knew Sherlock understood.

Asking a member of his team to give him a back rub would cross the line into unacceptable behaviour with subordinates, so that was out. But engaging a massage therapist was dangerous – even a thoroughly security-vetted one might be threatened or bribed just before he or she came to you. In many ways, it was riskier than paying for sex. A paid sex encounter would at least see you largely alert, adrenaline high, so you could react if something went wrong. The person could also be dismissed before you fell asleep. But anything could happen in a massage meant to completely relax you or make you doze off midway. Even if no harm was done in the session, a skilled therapist who had coaxed reactions from every inch of your body could inform enemies who were planning an abduction where your physical weaknesses were, and which points they could attack to most swiftly take you down unarmed.

"I'll do it for you from now on," Sherlock declared softly but determinedly as he worked on Mycroft's hip bones. "Obviously, I have no training in proper massage, but I know where all the muscles are, what they do, where they meet the bones, and how to ease tension in them. And I can always learn more conventional techniques."

"What you're doing is already perfect," Mycroft said. He didn't trust his voice at that moment to say more, as a thickness in his throat had formed at the thought that Sherlock not only cared broadly about his safety, but the little things too. The small things always got to him. Maybe because barely anyone he knew was allowed to think that Mycroft Holmes might need or care about the tiny details that made people human. Like affection. Concern. A genuine smile from someone who mattered. A thoughtful massage to relieve the bone-deep aches all over his exhausted body.

In this bedroom linked to the other side of the en suite bathroom of his Diogenes bunker office, Sherlock had already surprised him by undressing him all the way down to his boxer shorts, then making him lie face down, and working the deepest kinks out of his muscles and joints with precision instead of pouncing on him for sex. Mycroft had entrusted himself entirely to Sherlock, and what his brother had chosen to do for him had turned out to be exactly what he needed at this time.

"Regularly massaging this area should relieve the muscular discomfort that makes it hard for you to keep your pelvis level – you favour your right hip too much, and I've observed you're not as steady as I'd like you to be when you shift your weight to one leg," Sherlock murmured thoughtfully as he pressed into other points at the top of Mycroft's femurs. "In your job, with all its risks, you want to be as balanced as possible if you need to react to an assault. When you plan your workouts over the next few weeks, see what else you can do to strengthen your gluteus medius and minimus, right under and over here… and here."

"Noted," Mycroft mumbled into the pillow.

"How did you get this scar?" Sherlock asked, nudging the waistband of his boxers down a little and tracing the line of the old knife wound he'd sustained ten years ago in Kazakhstan. Mycroft didn't have to look at his face to know he was frowning.

Despite their having been fully undressed the other night at his house, the bedroom had been rather dark, and Sherlock hadn't had a good look at his unclothed back. Also, he'd protectively wrapped himself in layers of bespoke armour for so long that his brother hadn't seen him in a state of undress for… what was it? Nineteen years?... before they'd become lovers a week ago. Prior to that, the last occasion had been when Sherlock had barged into the bathroom in the Cornwall cottage their parents used to spend six weeks in every summer, until maintaining the property became too much trouble and they'd sold it. Mycroft had just stepped out of the bath that day when Sherlock had opened the door and entered without checking if anyone was inside. His little brother's eyes had gone wide at the full-frontal sight of him, and he'd blanched, then shot out of there, slamming the door after him. It was a few days after he'd fallen out of the ash tree (where he'd apparently been in pursuit of a beetle he wanted for an experiment).

Mycroft, on the other hand, had seen Sherlock in various states of undress over the years, most often while rescuing him from drug overdoses in which he'd managed to vomit all over himself, or from abductors, and of course, from the Serbian military. As well as during that one exceedingly exasperating episode at Buckingham Palace.

Nothing about any of those occasions had been erotic in the least – certainly not while they'd been battling through them. Context was everything. In the depths of terror for Sherlock's life, despair at his self-destructive nature, and vexation with his inappropriate conduct, Mycroft had dispassionately catalogued every wound and scar on his brother's body. Only later… always only later… would he draw the memories up from the abyss of his mind and reframe them, wondering hopelessly what his skin would have felt like if he hadn't had to touch it only in the frenzy of an emergency; what that familiar/unfamiliar flesh would have been like under his hands if he'd only been able to hold it in a moment of peace.

And whether he viewed this with dispassion or in a reframed vision, he had yet to completely forgive himself for not preventing every one of the scourge marks that remained on Sherlock's back, albeit significantly faded, from the torture he'd endured in Serbia. Sherlock himself had let it glide off his back (literally) like he did with all the physical damage he'd sustained – from the bullet Mary Morstan had sent tunnelling into his liver, and John's enraged punches and kicks, to each plunge of the needle, ignoring his body in favour of his mind. It was Mycroft, ironically, who'd felt every agonising lash on his behalf.

Well, they'd survived. And he'd savoured it at last, hadn't he? That skin, that flesh, holding him in a spell of peace. Mycroft knew he would carry the memory of making love to Sherlock in his soul, to his dying day. But he wondered now what _Sherlock's_ new perspective was on Mycroft's skin, flesh, body. He cared, it seemed. He wanted to heal him, and protect him, and hold him, it appeared. But how deep did it go…?

"Why don't I know about this?" Sherlock demanded. "It must have been bad."

"Kazakhstan, ten years ago," Mycroft revealed, gauging that Sherlock's feelings ran from little-brother concerned to new-lover curious. "An MI6 operation went wrong, and my cover was blown. I wasn't among the frontline operatives, but they still got to me. The fellow who came at me with the Kizlyar was probably aiming for my kidneys or spine, but I dodged. It ended up mostly a flesh wound. My team got me out."

"And I didn't notice you were that badly wounded the next time I saw you?" Sherlock asked.

"I made very sure you didn't notice," Mycroft stated matter-of-factly, turning his head so he could look at him. "Besides, the next time I saw you, you were so high, I didn't think you'd survive the comedown. You almost didn't."

"Oh."

"Lestrade was distraught."

"Was he?" Sherlock asked soberly.

"He'd thought you were just starting to stay clean. That involving you more in his cases was steering you in the right direction."

"You knew better."

"He wasn't wrong; you _were_ going in the right direction," Mycroft murmured. "But I knew it would take a little longer. You never stopped completely, but gradually, you managed better. I still hope you will decide, one day, to part company with those substances permanently. I won't push you – that's never done any good – but I hope you'll make that decision for yourself."

"You're not going to be overbearing about it?"

"I think I always will be, in a crisis," Mycroft admitted. "But I'll do my best to hold back when it's not life and death."

"You'll still nag me."

"Probably. But Sherlock, in the same way that you want me to be as well as I can, I want you to be as well as you can. Can you see it that way?"

"Hmm. I don't know. Possibly."

"I _will_ try to stay as well as I can, so that you won't have to worry about me."

"Good. Then you'll start with tackling your hypertonic tensor fascia lata," Sherlock stated firmly, working his hands into the outer edges of Mycroft's thighs, from knees to hips, ending with a dip of his thumbs into the hollow of his lower back.

" _Ahhhh…_ " Mycroft vocalised another embarrassingly drawn-out vowel.

Proceeding with care, Sherlock's palms eased the tension along his sacrospinalis as his fingers pressed down on either side of his spine, working their way towards his upper back.

"I know I hurt you when I twisted your arm at Baker Street back then," Sherlock said softly, as he rubbed the base of Mycroft's right scapula and upper arm, then the left side, after which he massaged the base of his neck and pressed in deep between his shoulder blades. "But you really were much too stiff – I didn't have to push your arm too far up behind you before you were at your absolute limit. You need to stretch a lot more."

"Why? So you can twist my arm _further_ next time?" Mycroft asked gruffly.

"If you don't behave like a prat again, I won't twist your arm either," Sherlock huffed.

"How comforting."

Sherlock added impishly: "Hmm… if I break your shoulder, I'll replace it with one of ivory like Demeter asked Hephaestus to do for Pelops when she ate his by mistake."

"What the devil would I do with a shoulder of ivory?" Mycroft growled.

"Tinkle out a tune on it? While I accompany you on the strings?" Sherlock snorted. "Oh, fine – we'll work on it regularly so we can increase your flexibility a little, then I should be able to force it about an inch higher before you yelp."

"Wretch," Mycroft muttered darkly into the pillow. "But hell and damnation, this does feel accursedly _good_."

"Your posture's much too stiff. This is to relax your rhomboids," Sherlock explained as he worked between the scapulae. "And here, at the base of your shoulder blades, here on your upper arms below the armpits, round the front of your shoulder capsule, and on the inside of your scapulae here… around the level of your second and third thoracic joints – working on these points eases your teres major and subscapularis. I think you know all that, but it's almost impossible to reach it on your own."

"I do know," Mycroft sighed, before adding a little grimly: "I've used it all before in the course of interrogating people as part of the less savoury aspects of my job, when other _experts_ weren't available, and the situation was urgent."

"So I gathered. It's not something I like to think about. But who am I to judge? I've killed people in cold blood."

" _One_ person," Mycroft corrected him sternly. "One very vile person." But then he paused and went on to sigh: "Hell, we _are_ monsters."

"Stop tensing up, You're undoing my work," Sherlock chided, rubbing slow, gentle, tiny circles into the back of Mycroft's neck with his fingertips to relax him, keeping it up for a minute before he was satisfied enough to tell him to turn over.

Trying not to imagine that, face up, he would probably look even more like a pallid slab of hairy meat, Mycroft shuffled into position and gazed up at Sherlock, who was still wearing his trousers and his unbuttoned, untucked shirt, sleeves rolled up.

"The heating's excellent here, so are you keeping your shirt on for a reason?" Mycroft asked, partially because he genuinely wondered why, and partially out of self-consciousness at being so undressed in comparison. "It's _not_ a suggestive question."

"I know it isn't," Sherlock said, working all ten of his digits into Mycroft's quadriceps. "Call it a symbolic gesture if you like. I intend to do this for you regularly, and as far as possible, I don't want your body or mind to associate it with other kinds of physical intimacy. This isn't about me angling for sex."

"I know," Mycroft agreed. "But I believe I have more than enough self-control not to succumb to Pavlovian reactions as easily as that. At least not all the time. Which means there's minimal harm in _not_ keeping things separate once in a while."

 _And if you would cover me with your body now, I wouldn't feel so exposed._

"Are you saying what I know you're saying?" Sherlock smiled, working on Mycroft's inner thighs.

The smile was what did it. Mycroft's cock twitched in his boxer shorts, and Sherlock's eyes narrowed. "You're ruining my professional focus on providing you with non-sexual physical therapy, Mycroft."

"I apologise," Mycroft said, with near-total insincerity.

"Keep your pants on and let me finish up," Sherlock's smile turned cheeky, but he was intent on doing a proper job, and took his time on each muscle and joint that he assessed as needing relief. He pressed, kneaded and manipulated his way up Mycroft's torso, to the shoulders and arms, then lightly stroked his neck, right up into his jawline and temples.

As he watched Sherlock work on him, expressing his care through his hands, Mycroft returned to his thoughts about how deep that care went. He deduced that to Sherlock, he was primarily the brother he had once been at war with but wasn't hostile to any longer, and had the added novelty of now being his lover as well. However, to Mycroft, Sherlock was seared into his soul. His little brother might tire of the novelty, but Mycroft was forever marked by him. He would have to conceal the mad depths of his _sentiment_ , his _feelings_ , all the sins he had packed away under layers of concealment for years. It had to be enough that he could enjoy these fleeting moments of tenderness. Stolen peace between the rounds of gunfire, stolen love between the falling of the bombs…

But Sherlock was done with the massage, and Mycroft was drawing him down onto the bed for a kiss, slipping his shirt off, slipping his trousers off, and his boxers, wanting to see again that skin, that flesh, to brand into his memory all over again the marks which recorded such a history that he wouldn't change a day of if it had all meant that it would lead up to this – to them, like this.

"Not much room on this bed, is there?" Sherlock asked with an easy laugh as he slid Mycroft's boxer shorts off him.

"It's a purely functional bedroom for when I have to be holed up in this bunker office for days, for operational reasons," Mycroft explained, caressing Sherlock's face. "It's just for sleeping in. Uncle Rudy certainly didn't outfit it for lovemaking when it was his office and room."

"Who was it who smacked me hard on the rump a week ago for mentioning blood relatives when we were in bed together?" Sherlock teased, lying on top of him, fingers gliding through Mycroft's hair, messing it up irredeemably.

"Touché."

"That door leads into the passageway, but you rarely use it," Sherlock noted, glancing at the closed door on the wall opposite to the one leading to the bathroom.

"Yes. It's always locked and bolted," he confirmed, running his hands down Sherlock's back. "Except when I have meetings in the office with anyone other than Anthea. That's when I use it as a separate entry and exit so that I can lock the bathroom door on this side as a safeguard – can't risk someone else slipping into the bedroom from the office through the connecting bathroom."

"Ever secretly had a lover tied naked and spreadeagled to this wrought-iron bed frame while you worked in the office, knowing that when you were done waging war on some hapless group, you could shoo Anthea and team out and come in here for a well-deserved hour of fucking your little secret until he or she couldn't remember what year this was any more?" Sherlock asked.

"No. Would you like to be the first?"

"Would you let me?"

"I'd have to gag you," Mycroft told him, playfully tapping him on the nose. "You're too restless, too noisy, too intent on pushing the boundaries. You'd try to make Anthea come in here just to see how she'd react."

"Gagged and bound, I'd still make a dreadful racket," Sherlock agreed, burying his face in Mycroft's neck and nibbling at the skin until he moaned.

"Then I would have to threaten you to keep you quiet," Mycroft breathed.

"Oh? How would you do that?" Sherlock purred into his ear.

"I'd tell you that if you made so much as one squeak, I'd leave you tied up here without touching you even once, and I'd make you watch as I took my time bringing myself off – without any help from you. You'd be miserably hard and desperately engorged and leaking copious amounts of pre-ejaculate by then, but I'd leave you bound for another few hours until you were frantic for the loo, still obscenely erect. And _then_ I'd send Philip Anderson in to untie you."

"Oh my god," Sherlock groaned, pulling back with a look of what appeared to be genuine horror on his face. " _Anderson_? For fuck's sake, Mycroft!"

"DS Sally Donovan, then? She would probably undo your gag only after she'd ranted at you for about thirty minutes for your 'freakishly twisted stupidity at getting yourself into such a moronic pickle' or some equivalent of the language she favours. _And_ she would take pictures which she would then distribute to everyone in the CID."

"Damn it, Mycroft! _Ugh!_ "

He took strategic advantage of Sherlock's distraction by the cringe-worthy mental images to flip them over on the mattress, calculating that he could manage, by a couple of inches, to avoid sending them tumbling to the floor. It worked, and he shuffled them both back towards the centre of the mattress, Sherlock beneath him now.

"You know what's scary about that?" Sherlock breathed quietly, running his warm hands slowly down Mycroft's sides.

"What?" He had barely felt those calluses during the unconventionally acupressure-like massage, but he could feel them now in the long, gentle glide of that dry touch. The prominent points of his brother's skin were hardened from hours of private fieldwork, haring over rooftops, grappling with criminals, playing the violin… those hands made Mycroft shiver.

"I can easily believe you'd do it," Sherlock whispered. "Keeping me tied up. Tormenting me for misbehaving."

"As long as you're not broken, bleeding or permanently damaged…" Mycroft began.

"…anything goes," Sherlock finished his sentence.

He covered that so-frequently insolent, rebellious mouth with his own, and though they'd kissed earlier, he really felt it now – the light burn of Sherlock's stubble against his own. Neither of them, it seemed, had shaved particularly closely this morning. It wasn't visually obvious, but he could feel the rasp, and it would leave marks. He didn't care.

"Fuck me, Mycroft," Sherlock tore his mouth away to gasp out.

"No, not now."

"Come on."

"Not yet. I mean it, Sherlock," Mycroft said as sternly as he could while panting lightly. "Not yet."

"What are you waiting for?"

" _I'm_ not ready."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Tell me when you are?"

"I will."

"Like this, then, for now?" Sherlock asked hoarsely, thrusting his cock up against Mycroft's own, provoking an inelegant grunt from him as he registered the heat, the throbbing pulse of his brother's prick, swollen and silky/hard against his groin.

Sherlock grabbed his arse to pull him down firmly, and Mycroft let most of his weight rest on him, giving Sherlock all the skin and friction he wanted. Perhaps _too_ much friction.

" _Please_ tell me you have _some_ lube here," Sherlock rasped as, despite the pre-cum and beads of perspiration starting to form on their skin in the heat of the room, things were starting to get uncomfortably dry, with the roughness of pubic hair and Mycroft's not-insignificant body hair getting into the mix.

"I don't, usually," Mycroft said huskily. "Most of the time, if I absolutely _must_ – which is rare – I see to myself in the bathroom while I'm showering. It's the same at home. It's a tidy, mess-free solution."

Sherlock groaned.

"But," Mycroft went on. "Since you made your previous complaint a week ago about my lack of supplies, I _have_ put some into the bedside drawers."

"Oh thank God," Sherlock exhaled.

Mycroft reached for the bottom drawer and produced a bottle of lubricant – much fancier than what Sherlock had carried to his house. Sherlock rolled his eyes at the brand, but drew a satisfied breath when he squeezed some out into the palm of his hand, slathered it over his own cock, then stroked Mycroft's a few times, bringing him to full hardness.

"We could have used this as a massage medium if I'd known it was there," Sherlock muttered. "It's good stuff."

"Only the best for you, of course," Mycroft huffed, right before the indignity of hearing himself whimper a little as Sherlock removed his hand from his shaft and pulled him in once more to thrust up against him, their lengths hot and rigid against each other.

Words fell away as the perfect consistency of the lube, the pleasurable heat of the contradictory smooth friction they were generating, and the delicious slide of their coated skin and hair went to his head like too much wine, and Mycroft let instinct take over. He held Sherlock down, thrusting against him, urgency scaling as he built up a rhythm, and it felt for all the world as if he were penetrating him, entering him, making him clutch Mycroft's upper arms and cry out as he did. He'd wanted to have and to hold this body, this flesh, this skin, to catalogue all its details in safety and peace, and he was holding and savouring it now. Savouring Sherlock.

"Mycroft… _nnnghh_ …" Sherlock gasped inarticulately, his restless mind as much of a blank as it could be in these moments.

Their eyes locked. Mycroft gazed down deeply into those stormy greys so much like his own, except these were wide with trust and affection, glazed with want and need and… oh God, yes, _submission_. He felt something click inside him like a lock falling open, and it was too late to hold back.

He recklessly unleashed the depths of his emotions into their shared gaze.

At once, he saw that Sherlock saw it. He could immediately read it all over him, and it was too late to pull it back into hiding.

Although he had told Sherlock long ago that he meant the world to him, his brother had undoubtedly not grasped the full gravity of it – just how _much_ Mycroft had meant it, with every fibre of his being. Well, he knew it now. He could see it radiating from Mycroft's gaze, plain as day: _You are everything to me. Everything._

He read the shock in Sherlock's face as he understood the extent of what he'd hidden from him. But Mycroft was climaxing now, coming hard against Sherlock, sending spurt after spurt of his seed onto both their bodies, hot and sticky between them.

"Sherlock…" he whispered helplessly into his brother's hair as he came, wanting to pour out in words: _It's all right. It's all right if you don't feel the same all-consuming love for me. For years, I told you to put away sentiment and feeling, so you never knew this was in me. I never expected even this much from you. I'll accept whatever you can give. It's all right…_

He couldn't utter the words, but Sherlock was at his limit too, finding relief as he came with a throaty cry moments later, clinging to Mycroft. Clinging, thank God, not withdrawing. Just holding on to him and firing his cum between them to mingle with Mycroft's. As he quivered through the aftershocks, his arms slipped around Mycroft and held him tight, but in the warmth of their satiety as they overdosed on their insane cocktail of hormones, he truly couldn't tell if Sherlock's embrace was a wordless response of _"I'll give you all I can"_ , or whether he was telling him _"I'm sorry, Mycroft, but I can't go that whole terrifying distance with you"_.

It didn't matter. For now, this was enough. For now, this was more than he could have asked for.

* * *

Revelation. Mycroft had spent so many years imprisoning his feelings for Sherlock in the dungeon of his soul that he might have forgotten how far down the abyss went. It descended further than Sherlock had anticipated. His senses ached just from catching a glimpse of that dizzying height, the distance he would have to fall to discover how deep it lay.

 _"Nine days they fell; confounded Chaos roared,  
_ _And felt tenfold confusion in their fall  
_ _Through his wild Anarchy…"_

Like Satan and his angels plummeting from heaven into hell, _Paradise Lost_ , in Milton's words.

Except that Mycroft's soul hardly needed to be a hell for either of them.

Then again, Sherlock hadn't foreseen this, hadn't calculated all the terrifying measurements…

So in the same way that he made mental breakthroughs when he'd been battering his head against a wall for too many minutes, he decided to come at this from another angle, to give himself a different dimension of space to manoeuvre in; a new perspective.

"Can I spend the day with you?" he abruptly popped the question to Mycroft as they lay side by side, catching their breath, processing the intensity of what had just transpired between them.

His brother, already well on his way to dipping a toe into a hell of his own making, couldn't suppress the startled look that flashed across his face. But at least it made him pull his toes back from the accursed lake of brimstone he'd somehow managed to put there _all by himself_.

"Anthea won't let anyone bother you for the rest of the day, so can I be with you?" Sherlock asked again.

"I think…" Mycroft began, collecting his scattered focus. "… I think I _can_ pull myself together enough not to have to take the entire day off work just because my mother hurt my feelings."

He sounded a little more like himself at the end of that statement than he had at the start of it. Quick recovery.

"If you really must, you can work from home. But I'm not leaving your side today," Sherlock insisted.

"Sherlock, what just happened…"

Sherlock quickly rolled onto one elbow, propped himself up, and kissed Mycroft to shut him up. When, after a minute or so, he felt his brother's tormented mind quieten, he tilted back to say: "You need to think. I know that. I need to think. You know that too. But stop feeling so damned guilty for all the _nothing_ that you've done wrong."

Mycroft drew his right forearm over his eyes and lay still and silent for a minute, blocking the world out, while Sherlock kept quiet and let him digest… well, stuff.

Finally, he uncovered his eyes, sat up, and retrieved his underwear. "We need a shower," he announced unexpectedly.

If Sherlock could come at a tangle of knots from another angle, so could Mycroft, it seemed.

"This bathroom's tiny," Sherlock sniffed. "Let's just towel ourselves down here and go back to your house to shower."

Somewhat to his surprise, Mycroft acquiesced without argument. They wiped each other down at the sink with a face towel, then went around the bedroom and office retrieving their clothing. While Mycroft tamed his hair into its usual proper state, Sherlock, on his orders, stripped off the bed sheet and replaced it with a fresh one from the linen chest of drawers across the room.

(Because Mycroft, apparently, had a not-entirely-unjustified paranoia that terrorist frogmen would surface from the Thames and dig their way into the subterranean levels of the Diogenes to find blackmail-worthy evidence of his seminal fluid mingled with his own brother's.)

Extreme, but not entirely unjustified. Because after Moriarty and Eurus and Charles Augustus Magnussen, Sherlock was pretty much putting nothing past anyone.

"I'll give that and the face towel a laundering at home before I drop them back into the laundry basket here," Mycroft told him, folding up both articles and slipping them into a black messenger satchel that he produced from one of the cabinet drawers in the office, and now slung diagonally over Sherlock's torso.

He called his driver, and they went home. Although they stepped into the spacious shower together, they got up to no mischief under the hot, falling water. It was oddly domestic and intimate in a peculiarly practical way: They washed each other's hair; Mycroft let Sherlock pick the shower gel he wanted – the Molton Brown Black Pepper – and they got themselves clean; they dried themselves with the same bath towel, but Sherlock was handed his own bathrobe (of course).

Mycroft dressed in trousers and a shirt that Sherlock chose for him – he refused to hand him a waistcoat, tie, or sleeve garters – and Sherlock was tossed a green silk shirt and wool flannel trousers. Mycroft insisted on pulling on his socks and leather Oxfords, while Sherlock stuffed his bare feet into a pair of bizarrely ornate velvet carpet slippers that Mycroft had mysteriously extracted from some hitherto unknown dimension of his bedroom.

Together, they went down into the bowels of the house, where Sherlock was tasked with tossing the bunker office suite's bed sheet and face towel into the washing machine, while Mycroft made tea. Following that, they repaired to the drawing room. Mycroft sat at the dining table with his files and papers neatly spread out over the long tabletop as he tapped away at his laptop – the very one Sherlock had once stolen.

Sherlock, for his part, hauled one of the armchairs from the unlit fireplace over to the dining table, close to Mycroft, and curled up in it with his phone and cup of Earl Grey, reading his messages, deleting most of them, and idly attempting to annoy John by leaving silly posts on his blog.

At some point, Sherlock dozed off in the armchair and was woken by Mycroft about an hour later. Hazily, he wended his way upstairs and crawled into his brother's bed. Mycroft slipped off his shoes and joined him there. But still, everything remained curiously, casually domestic as Mycroft sat cross-legged – actually sat _cross-legged_ – on the mattress with his laptop on the duvet before him, while Sherlock plopped his head onto his brother's left thigh and closed his eyes, soothed by the slight movements of Mycroft's body as he tapped away on the keys, very much liking the warm, familiar scent of the slender body he was using as a pillow.

Every few minutes, when he stopped to read an email or think about how to word something in a paper he was writing, Mycroft would run his hands through Sherlock's curls and gently scratch at his scalp, as if he were a large cat in his lap.

They simply spent the day in each other's personal space like that, in one configuration or another, and it was all very close and intimate and calm – and both of them pointedly _did not_ talk about the matter on their minds.

When the autumn sun started sinking below the skyline, Sherlock got up, put his own clothes back on, considerately placed the borrowed garments in Mycroft's laundry basket, grabbed his violin case, and kissed Mycroft goodbye. Declining a ride in the Jaguar, he rang for a cab, hopped into it when it pulled up, looked back only once at the house to see Mycroft's shadowy figure behind the window of the drawing room, and returned to Baker Street.

Once through the door, he was assailed by the warm, whirlwind chaos of his usual domain. This was domesticity of a different nature. Mrs Hudson came at him first with an amused gush of: "Oh, Sherlock! We had the battiest fake client in here this morning even though John said you were out for the day. Looked for all the world like Dame Edna Everage, she did, and all she wanted was a pair of your used pants! John showed her the door politely, saying that if she really wanted used underthings, she could have Rosie's diapers…"

"Well done, John," Sherlock muttered, waltzing into Mrs Hudson's kitchen and stealing a biscuit from the tray she'd just pulled out of the oven.

"Sherlock! Those are for tomorrow's meeting with the landladies' group!"

"Thanks, Mrs Hudson – tastes marvellous. Shortbread, isn't it?" he grinned as he breezed out of her flat and up the stairs to his and John's, where he found his best friend wrestling leftovers out of the fridge.

"There you are," John greeted him. "I was just wondering if I should text you to ask if you'd be back for dinner."

"I'm not really hungry."

"Then why are you eating Mrs Hudson's shortbread?"

"Because… it smelt good… and it was there?"

"Last night's stew will also be right there on the table in a few minutes – just let me heat it up, and get some of this bread, and we'll be set," John said firmly. "I'm not letting you go without dinner."

"Hmm," Sherlock murmured in non-committal fashion, seating himself in front of Rosie's baby chair and observing her as she banged out a random arrhythmic beat with her plastic cutlery on the built-in tray of her seat.

"Rosie's food is on the coffee table – feed her at least a couple of spoonfuls, would you please, Sherlock? She's been awfully distracted by every noise and object this evening and is barely halfway through her meal, and it's been a whole hour since we started," John called out over his shoulder.

Sherlock picked up the bowl of pureed… whatever it was… and held out a spoonful to the baby, who turned her head aside in a clear gesture of refusal.

"Watson," Sherlock intoned sternly to the child. "Your father believes that it is necessary for you to consume your evening meal."

Rosie gurgled out what surely _had_ to be a mocking laugh in his face, before turning her head away again.

"Come on, Watson," Sherlock said persuasively. "If you eat one spoonful, I'll eat one corresponding spoonful of the not-very-good leftover stew your sire is quite pointlessly heating in the microwave oven, which will not render it any better-tasting than it was last night."

"How about _you_ try to cook something once in a while that doesn't explode in our faces or have human body parts as ingredients, and we'll see how good it tastes, eh, Sherlock?" John responded snappishly from his end of the flat.

"Your father does not appear to be in a very good mood today. Eat this before he threatens to feed you some of the stew gravy."

" _Or_ to cook _both_ of you impossible creatures into a fresh stew!" John growled.

"That's interesting. I just mentioned Pelops to Mycroft today."

"Who?"

"Pelops. Greek mythology. Son of Tantalus. His father killed him, cooked him, and served him to the gods, who mostly figured out something was up and didn't eat the dish. But Demeter, distracted by grief over her daughter Persephone, who had been abducted by her uncle Hades as his bride, ate Pelops' shoulder."

"That sounds vaguely familiar from materials I read a lifetime ago, but I've long forgotten the details," John said. "Wait… Persephone's _uncle_ took her as his bride?"

"And her father and mother were brother and sister," Sherlock glibly added to the incestuous horror of the tale for John.

"Oh, God," John groaned.

"Oh _gods_ , you mean," Sherlock snorted. "But I was speaking of Pelops. Anyway, yup – killed, cooked, partially eaten. The eaten shoulder was replaced by the gods with one of ivory. Not sure what sort of ivory. Did they have elephants on Olympus?"

John turned around from the microwave to give Sherlock a baffled look, and to ask with a great deal of curiosity: "Is _this_ the sort of stuff you and Mycroft _actually_ talk about when your family goes to see your sister?"

"Erm. Well. Sometimes. Yes. Mythology and stuff."

"And these are your _casual_ conversations." John sounded like he was just checking to make sure. It didn't make his tone any less disbelieving.

Sherlock shrugged in lieu of what would otherwise have been an equally vague verbal reply.

"Right. Did everything go smoothly today?" John asked, turning back to the microwave as it beeped, and opening the door to give the stew a stir.

"Sort of. No, not really. Mummy was in a bit of a mood, and took it out on Mycroft."

"Oh. That can't have gone well," John said, sounding concerned, putting the container back into the microwave.

"There was some tension. I'm afraid I snapped at Mummy. I'll have to apologise to her for my vulgar language. But minus the vulgarity, I'm _not_ sorry I snapped. She wasn't being reasonable."

"So you spoke up for Mycroft. That was nice of you. I think," John remarked. He'd been on much better terms with Mycroft since Sherrinford, but some ambivalence towards him would probably always exist.

Sherlock tried again to feed Rosie – successfully, this time – while John plated the stew and bread, and carried everything over to the coffee table. Since Rosie had started on solids, they'd made a habit of sitting on the carpet or the sofa and eating their meals off the low table so they could easily feed and amuse her at the same time. The child would grow up bohemian and feral at this rate, no proper manners whatsoever, but that was all right – Sherlock had forgotten all his proper manners and every social convention at some point in his life, and look how he'd turned out.

Oh. Wait. No. The drugs. The manslaughter. The hours spent behind bars. Falling off rooftops. Getting beaten to a pulp. Hmm. Maybe not such a good idea after all.

"Sherlock, are you all right?" John asked after swallowing his fourth mouthful of stew and watching Sherlock nibble his way through his first.

"Mmm. Yes. We should make sure Rosie learns some proper table manners sooner rather than later so she doesn't shoot people and end up behind bars."

"Behind bars… table manners… wait – _what?_ " John asked, thoroughly bewildered.

"Never mind. Stream of consciousness. Ignore me."

"Okay."

They carried on eating and feeding Rosie between bites, then Sherlock asked: "John, what are the isotopes of love?"

"The isotopes of… good grief, Sherlock, it isn't chemistry," John sighed. "Well, all right, love perhaps is chemistry in a way, but it doesn't come in _isotopes_."

"Types, then. Whatever you call it."

"Are you asking me a question you already know the answer to just so you can ultimately answer it yourself ten times more brilliantly? Or are you too lazy to Google what you don't know? Or do you genuinely think I have some insight to offer you?"

"Maybe the latter two."

"Fine. Let me Google that for you, genius."

A few taps and swipes of his phone later, John announced: "Here you go. There are different answers and interpretations, but if we go with ancient Greek guidelines as well as good old C.S. Lewis' take on things, we roughly have four main types: _storge_ , _philia_ , _eros_ , and _agape_. Very briefly: _storge_ is responsible love, like between parents and children, or among family members in general; _philia_ is the love for siblings or close friends; _eros_ is romantic and sexual love; _agape_ is what the religious like to think of as God's love for his people, but which the non-religious term unselfish or unconditional love."

"So…" Sherlock ventured cautiously. "If someone has always seemed to have _storge_ and _philia_ love for me, and I realised not long ago that it was _agape_ too, and to top it all off, it now turns out that there was plenty of _eros_ as well, does that mean…"

John stared at him. "Is this purely hypothetical? Or does this someone exist? Because that sounds to me as if such a someone would be completely, utterly, crazily, stupidly, head-over-heels in love and lust with you."

"Okay… and if I previously only maybe just barely had _storge_ for this someone, then managed to shift into _philia_ gear a little before it became a lot, and ramped it right up into _eros_ , to my surprise, then began getting a bit _agape_ -ish too…?"

John stared harder at him. "Then it sounds like you're gradually falling in love in return with this hypothetical someone – oh God, _is_ this hypothetical or _not_?"

"It's… it's difficult to give you an answer."

"Okaaay, are you doing something _weird_ in your mind palace right now?" John asked, dropping his fork and lowering his voice. "Is this another one of those deep, involved, drug-laced Emilia Ricoletti things taking over your life – are you having an affair with an _imaginary friend_? Are you _high_ right now?"

"I'm not high, John. And how old do you think I am? _Five_?" Sherlock growled.

"Sometimes, yes," John said flatly, ignoring his offended glare. "Wait… is this about Irene Adler? Did she come back?"

"The _woman_? No… no, John. She didn't."

"Well, yeah, the combination and order's all wrong, anyway – with _her_ , it was _clearly_ plenty of _eros_ first with a dollop of virginal flailing on the side, then more _eros_ , and maybe a teensy bit of compassionate _agape_ and nothing more."

"'Virginal flailing'?" Sherlock glared harder at John.

"Sorry, but you absolutely have to know what I mean, Sherlock."

"I do _not_."

"Look, seriously, Sherlock. Are you getting involved with someone you shouldn't be? Is this another dangerous person?"

"I… I can't say."

"Does this have anything to do with that super-secret dinner date you had three weeks ago, when you left the house looking positively… what did Mrs Hudson say? Ah, yes, 'positively edible', she said, after you'd left. Does it?"

"John, it's… I can't…"

"You can't say it. I get it. It's difficult."

"Yes."

"All right. Then let me say this. If this person, real or imaginary, is in any way, shape or form not good for you – just not _safe_ for you in any manner – and you might be about to make a mistake by going for it, then talk to me first. Can you talk about it at this moment?"

"No. But I'll… try to talk to you, if I think it's a bad move."

"Good. What I'm going to say next is awkward, but I'm just going to put it out there: I _am_ primarily straight, as you know. But I've, erm, _experimented_ before, and wasn't completely put off. So what I'm saying is that if you just need _someone_ to be with, I'm open to being with you. I'm not gay, but if it's to keep you from going off the deep end, I'd jump the fence for you. _Only_ you, Sherlock."

"John, I don't know… I…" Sherlock began, hopelessly mentally flailing for words, and failing, before settling on: "Thanks, John. That means a lot to me. It's a bit _insulting_ , but still, it means a lot to me."

"Well, you know how much you mean to me when I can insult you in the same breath while sort of propositioning you."

"Who do you think you are?" Sherlock asked in mock-disbelief. "Mr Darcy?"

John laughed. "You'd make a _terrible_ Elizabeth."

"Oh, I don't know – isn't my face rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of my dark eyes?" Sherlock asked.

John guffawed. "Oh my God, you've been reading _Pride and Prejudice_? Wonders will never cease. Did you steal that from Mycroft's library too? 'Beautiful expression of your dark eyes' – that takes the cake, Sherlock."

"What? I'm not beautiful enough for you?"

"Oh, shut up and eat your dinner, gorgeous," John muttered. "But really, totally seriously, Sherlock? I mean what I said. And you know you can talk to me about anything. After all we've been through, you can, you know. Anything. I might insult you a bit, but I'd still hear you out in the end."

"John."

"Hmm?" he murmured, already focusing on his food and Rosie again.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome, genius."

Revelation. Mycroft was quite probably completely, utterly, crazily, stupidly, head-over-heels in love with him. And Sherlock, who'd thought that he was finally returning his long-concealed affection, realised that he hadn't begun to map the depths of his brother's feelings for him.


	7. Clarity, Confirmation

**Clarity, Confirmation**

Clarity. John's proposal had been presented in too thought-through a form to have come out of the blue. Sherlock had known it at once, but said nothing until the next day.

"It didn't just cross your mind yesterday, did it?" he reopened the subject while they sat on the floor of the Hammersmith house John had lived in with Mary, sorting through stacks of books.

"Hmm? What?"

"Your generous offer to jump the fence for me."

"No. I'd been meaning to bring it up for a while," John readily admitted, looking through a pile of Henry James novels that were a mix of his and Mary's.

"Why?" Sherlock asked, reaching out to draw Rosie back from toddling head first into a tower of paperbacks.

"I gave it serious thought after Sherrinford, and after absorbing everything Mary had told me while she was with us and even when she'd left us," John said quietly, starting to put the James books into the "keep" box. "At the risk of sounding insufferably egomaniacal, I've accepted that you don't seem to do well without me for long. I care about you. So if any half-acceptable arrangement with me works to keep you from plunging into something self-destructive, then it works for me too."

"What makes you think I might be doing something self-destructive?" Sherlock questioned, setting Rosie on her feet by the sofa, away from sharp hardback corners.

"I may not be able to deduce things like you do, but I know you, Sherlock," John said. "You have _someone_ on your mind. You had that look the whole time we were dealing with Irene Adler. And you had that same look when you were thinking about being with me – no, don't deny it – I never bought any of your 'married to my work' crap… oh God, I hope 'crap' doesn't turn out to be Rosie's first proper word… anyway, I know you contemplated an arrangement of convenience with me in the past. Now you've got that look again, but it's not directed at me any more. If it's someone who isn't safe for you, then I'd rather you were with me. Simple as that."

"Appallingly practical," Sherlock muttered.

"Do you expect me to do it with wine, roses and diamonds, Sherlock?"

"I don't expect you to do it at all. As I said yesterday, thanks, but arrangements of convenience aren't best for us. I no longer want to trap you in one, and you probably don't want to restrict me to one either. That book you're holding – _The Golden Bowl_ – remember Charlotte? Trapped. And Amerigo? Trapped. Amerigo's ambiguous words to Maggie: 'I see nothing but you' – that was bleak. She'd left him with nothing else to see but herself. I'd never want that for us."

"I can't believe you've read this book," John laughed. "Isn't it all so meandering with its refusal to pin down what anything _means_ or exactly _what_ is happening in the characters' heads that it's the very sort of novel you would have blown up in the fireplace?"

"If you found it that bad, why are you putting it in the 'keep' box?" Sherlock countered.

"I didn't say I found it bad – I only thought _you_ would. I liked it once I came to terms with its vagueness. And Mary liked the essence of it. Well, she did also say that she'd never waste time rereading it. But I'm still keeping it."

Sherlock knew that John's unspoken thoughts as he laid the book in the box were: _"I'll reread it for her, even if she says she wouldn't have. I think she would have, one day. If she'd had more time."_

They had moved past the stage when Sherlock constantly felt the need to atone for Mary's death and had to hold himself back from asking John to please just hit him again, kick him again – break his bones, even – if it would make him feel better. And John was progressing beyond the stage where he had been able to talk about Mary to anyone except Sherlock. At unpredictable intervals, the grief, guilt and anger would surface, but the pain was no longer searing, and they knew it would grow milder with time.

"What would it have been like, John, if we'd entered into an arrangement back when I could see nothing but you, and you were still looking around?" It was Sherlock's very first outright admission that he had once been romantically interested in John. The significance of the moment wasn't as overwhelming as he'd imagined.

John matched Sherlock's calmness by not making a big deal of it. He just thought about it while scooping Rosie into his lap when she walked unsteadily over from the sofa. His answer, when it came, was unvarnished and honest: "I'd have felt guilty all the time, knowing you were sexually and romantically attracted to me much more than I could be to you. My infatuation with your intellect wouldn't have been enough to balance it out, and it wouldn't have been fair to you in the long term."

"And now?"

"After going through what feels like every variation of hell with you, I appreciate you more as a human being and my best friend, and you're less blind to the worst failings in my character. Things seem more even," John said.

"I see."

"Would you have accepted my offer a few years ago? When things were much more uneven between us?"

"My initial reaction might have been yes," Sherlock said slowly. "Anything would have seemed better than nothing. But if I'd taken a moment to predict the eventual outcome, I would have seen that I would grow to resent always being the one who wanted more, the one always in danger of being deserted, the one with more to lose."

"And now?" John echoed Sherlock's question from a moment ago.

"Right now, if it isn't desperately wanted or needed by either of us, let's not settle for it as a might-as-well option."

"Fair enough. But remember – if you're about to make a daft decision on whoever's put that look on your face, I still want you to talk to me first."

"Noted."

"Where's that pile of Ruth Rendell mysteries I don't want any more?" John wondered. "It's not in the box for Oxfam…"

Sherlock continued sorting the books and alternately playing with Rosie as she walked, crawled and rolled about while pondering what his conversation with John had helped him to clarify. His conclusion: He couldn't do this to Mycroft – he couldn't do to him what John was offering to do to Sherlock. It wouldn't be fair.

Naturally, it was accepted that an elder sibling might care much more for a younger one, and many family relationships were heavily unequal. But it wasn't right between partners. Although Mycroft had borne the one-sidedness in the years when he had compelled himself to regard Sherlock as no more than his brother, it would be wrong to deprive him of a more equitable relationship now. Sherlock wanted better for him.

He never wanted Mycroft to arrive at a point where he might be driven to echo Annabella's words to Giovanni: _"Do not betray me to your mirth or hate; / Love me, or kill me, brother."_

"You should talk to Mycroft too," John murmured, with uncanny timing.

"What about?" he asked, keeping his face neutral, because John couldn't possibly know about them.

"As and when you're about to go for something irretrievably foolish, at least make a passing mention of it to your brother," John advised. "He may mock you mercilessly, or perhaps shackle you and toss you into a padded cell, but at least you'll have his perspective – which nearly always tries to keep you more or less physically and mentally intact. And that's a good thing, in case you've forgotten."

"Hmm."

"Give me your hand."

"What?"

"You heard me, genius. Don't make me repeat myself."

His left arm was wrapped around Rosie, so Sherlock extended his right hand. John took it in both of his own, and held Sherlock's gaze. Immediately, Sherlock saw what John was doing, because he himself had done the very same thing to Irene Adler at Christmas four years ago. And doctor that he was, John had unerringly found his pulse and was scrutinising his eyes.

"Warm and steady," John commented, a smile touching the corners of his eyes.

That rang a bell. Sherlock did a swift search of the storehouses of his memory, bearing in mind that he and John were at present going through books and had just mentioned literary works, so the context they were in had very likely prompted a reference for John to echo. That meant he should narrow his search to… ah… _got it_. "Could you be more obvious, _Mr Rochester_?"

John chuckled. "Well done, _Jane_." Still holding Sherlock's hand, he then went on to remark: "This is truly a change, though. Your body, at last, is backing up what you've been telling me in words."

"What's changed?"

"The way you look at me, the way your pulse doesn't jump quite so strongly any more when we're in physical contact."

"You _do_ recall, don't you, John, that nearly every time we've been in physical contact, it's also been because we were in mortal danger?" Sherlock asked, raising his eyebrows pointedly.

"Yes, but there have been tamer occasions. Don't think I never noticed your pulse racing. I was just…"

"Too polite to mention it?" he asked, readjusting a squirming Rosie against his left hip when he felt a trail of her drool seeping into his shirt.

"Yup," John grinned. "So things really _have_ changed because of this mysterious someone on your mind?"

Sherlock answered carefully: "I would say that things have changed because I recently recalled something from many years ago that I'd forgotten for a long time. I remembered what it was like to be truly loved by someone in every possible way. I remembered what it was like to mean the world to that person. Having remembered it, I could no longer compromise by accepting anything less."

"Someone from your past loved you that much, and you forgot?"

"I forgot many things of importance."

"Like having a sister."

"What can I say? I have a peculiar mind."

"Want to talk about this person who loved you so much that I can no longer match up, with my uncommitted half-love?" John asked gently.

"I can't. Not yet. Perhaps not ever, because in many ways, this isn't just my own secret to keep – it affects someone else. But essentially, what this person gave me and did for me and felt for me – it's that or nothing for me now. Anything else would pale in comparison."

"Do you still know this person? Or have you found a substitute? Or are you bringing him to life in your mind and interacting with him there? I assume it's a he, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong."

Sherlock was forced to be vague in his reply: "Let's say it's a he. Even if I did still know him, I imagine he wouldn't be the same person he used to be. I can't say that I've found a _substitute_ , in that sense, but I _do_ have someone in mind."

"If it is indeed a he, then it's not Molly."

"No."

"She's someone who loves you in every possible way, though."

"I know. John, Molly will always mean more to me than I can adequately express to her. But her love isn't a realistic one rooted in the practical knowledge of how horrible I am to live with from hour to hour, or in the tedium of everyday life with a very human man who fails at many things in terrible ways. Hers is still the love of a woman idolising a man who seems perfect at one remove, but would never be able to give her the emotional affection she needs. You know what I'm like."

John gave a good-humoured smile laced around the edges with both sadness and exasperation as he said: "Oh yes, I know exactly what you're like. Well, I hope you know what you're doing. Molly would be good for you – _you'd_ be terrible for _her_ , but she'd be wonderful for you. So if it's not her, and you still can't talk to me about it, then I hope you'll make good decisions, whatever they are."

"Thank you, John."

Still holding Sherlock's hand, he lifted it to his lips and kissed the backs of his fingers. It was a surprising gesture, but fitting, Jane Eyre-wise. That done, he let go, and they got back to sorting out stuff so John could take an objective look at the house before deciding whether to rent it out, keep it as it was so he would have an alternative home to raise Rosie in, or sell it and find another place when Rosie was a little older.

By late afternoon, with John's back aching, he announced that they had better leave the rest for tomorrow. They locked up, took a bus to the shops, got a takeaway from an Indian eatery Mary had liked, and rode the Tube back to Baker Street. They'd eaten and got Rosie fed and washed too, and were just settling down to some mindless telly when Sherlock's phone chimed with an incoming call from Lestrade.

"Tell me you have something half-decent for me, Lestrade," he said imperiously. "I spent the entire afternoon sorting through piles of dusty books for want of something better to do, and the three clients John and I saw in the morning came to us with puzzles so painfully dull, Rosie could have solved them. Paid well, though."

"Sherlock," Lestrade's voice was muted when it came over the line, which put him on immediate alert. "There's a hostage situation at the May Fair Hotel, with about sixty civilians under threat."

That very moment, the notification of an incoming text message chimed on Sherlock's phone, and he held the screen away from his ear just long enough to see that the sender was Anthea. He returned to the phone call from Lestrade, asking the DI: "Why are you calling me about this? Isn't your specialist firearms unit already there?"

He hoped for once that this would just turn out to be a pointless phone call prompted by Lestrade forgetting to use his brain, but he had an uneasy feeling about it.

"Our units are in place, Sherlock," Lestrade said gravely. "In fact, the whole area is just about overrun with what looks like every damn Home Office unit. It was a private dinner hosted by the Chinese ambassador – diplomats are among the hostages, and we're all dealing with the situation."

"Then what do you need me for?"

"I'm calling you partly because we may need you to puzzle out the most likely spots for the hostage-taker to have hidden the bombs she claims she's planted around the hotel. Or if she's even planted any. She could be lying."

"Okay," Sherlock said, still feeling on edge despite Lestrade having a legitimate reason for calling him.

He knew why when the DI uttered his next words: "But the main reason I'm calling you is that I think you should know: Mycroft is in there."

* * *

Confirmation. That morning had begun awkwardly for Mycroft. Lady Smallwood had looked at him strangely, thrice, during the highly classified meeting involving the most senior members of the Cabinet. And the cause of her odd looks wasn't the rather entertaining spectacle of Eldon Pennyfather and Bernard Walbrook receiving an off-the-record dressing-down by various parties, from the Prime Minister to the Secretary of Defence. They were getting a thorough skewering for Walbrook's role in the Sherrinford incident, and his and Pennyfather's foolishness years ago in lying about the Chinese treasures.

Although Mycroft had convinced the Cabinet not to open another official inquiry into the Sherrinford case beyond what they had already put Mycroft himself through in the immediate aftermath, it didn't stop the ministers in the know from figuratively meting out a flogging to Walbrook and reminding him, subtly and not so subtly, to leave operational matters to the people who actually knew how to manage them (in other words, Mycroft).

But none of that could possibly be the reason why Lady Smallwood had directed such intent looks at him. They didn't have one of their private transactions scheduled for today, so surely this wasn't her new idea of foreplay.

He found out when the meeting ended, and she walked with him to his JIC office. Once the door was closed and locked behind them, the awkwardness instantly increased in one sense while abating in another when she went straight to the point: "You have stubble burn on your face, Mycroft."

"Oh, I–"

"You've hidden it well. But I've seen you at much closer quarters than the rest of the Cabinet has, and I can tell where you've dabbed on the concealer. Have you known him long, or was it just a terribly passionate one-off?"

Feeling slightly relieved that she had brought it up first, and not wanting to insult her intelligence by pretending to be unsure about the conditions of his arrangement with her, he came clean at once without naming names: "I've known him for a long time, but we were never on such terms before."

"Don't sound so hesitant," she responded tranquilly. "We've never been exclusive, nor have we pretended to be. You needn't ask my permission to see anybody else. It makes things simpler for me too. I'd been wondering how to broach the matter of an old boyfriend from my schooldays. He's got in touch with me, and has made it plain that he wants to pick up where we left off when we were young, foolish and too temperamental to stay together."

Lady Smallwood had always been rather hard for him to read – as he'd learnt when he'd first thought she had been the one to betray A.G.R.A. years ago. When he'd questioned her then, he had found it hard to tell if she was speaking the truth. But now that he knew her better, his observations suggested it was very likely that there was indeed another man in her life.

"I hope you remember him with as much fondness as he seems to remember you, Alicia," Mycroft said to her in warm tones, feeling almost shy about the fact that he genuinely wished her very well and wanted her to be happy.

"Alfie's lovely," she stated, giving him, in return, what appeared to be a genuine smile. "My family didn't think he was good enough to date me when we were teenagers, but most of them aren't around any more, so who cares what they would have thought?"

"Indeed."

"What about _your_ man, then? Is he important enough to terminate our arrangement for, or would you rather keep things open, depending on how it goes with me and Alfie?"

"He is important to me," he confessed. "I don't know if the commitment is equal on both sides, but I would like to give it a good chance to develop. If things go well for you and your Alfie, let's put us on hold for now, shall we?"

"Let's do that. I'll keep you updated," she said, stepping up to him to give him a peck on the cheek. "You do have to attend the Chinese ambassador's private party this evening, don't you?"

"I do."

"I fear you'll be in for a dreadfully dull time, but try to enjoy yourself, Mycroft."

"I will, Alicia."

She walked out of his office, leaving him to continue wondering if she truly had an old first love who was back in her life, or if she had said so to pre-empt what she must have suspected might be a forthcoming suggestion from him to end their arrangement.

In truth, he didn't think Sherlock would object to his carrying on with Lady Smallwood. He'd known him to be jealous of John's lovers, but Mycroft had never been on his "jealousy radar", for want of a better term. In fact, he would probably be relieved that Mycroft had someone else to distract him, now that he had seen and weighed the burden of his love. Regardless of what his brother might think, however, suspending this aspect of his relationship with Lady Smallwood was probably wise – one less complication in his life would be a good thing, as long as that one less complication wasn't Sherlock.

Besides, Lady Smallwood was no Molly Hooper, who had tried to make herself move past Sherlock while never giving up hope in her heart, then crumbling when she found herself still stuck in the same spot. Alicia was a woman who knew how to move on. This meant she had far more sense than Molly. It also meant that she was eminently more sensible than Mycroft, who hadn't moved on in more than sixteen years.

For now, he set aside the troubling idea that he might possibly have less sense than even Molly Hooper, and spent the afternoon reading the weekly reports from MI6, MI5 and the CID.

Some disturbing signals from suspected would-be troublemakers were indicated in these submissions: suspicious travel patterns, private meetings with unsavoury foreign parties, and purchases of items that could conceivably be used to make bombs or firearms (but these days, anyone with a 3D printer, or the patience to trawl through a million instructional sites on the internet, could make weapons from just about anything, so it might mean nothing). One or two of these individuals also seemed to be getting close to unlikely people such as teenage girls from normal families, or random contract workers who were not known to have access to key locations or personnel.

It was always a challenge for Mycroft to trust that the reports submitted to him were accurate, and had not left out crucial details that could change the whole picture. He often found himself troubled by the awareness that if something was not submitted to him in a report, then he didn't know about it, and could do nothing to prevent it. How many large-scale crimes were being planned right now that he knew nothing of, because no one had said anything to the authorities?

Most of the details provided did not indicate major terrorist activity underway. They only seemed to add up to individual anarchists awaiting an opportunity to make a move. And the services knew what to do about such cases – continue monitoring the individuals closely, and shut down the suppliers or contacts that might enable them to enact mischief.

However, the reports relating to British far-right extremists were a bit odd. Mycroft found himself scrutinising info about how four suspected far-right sympathisers under surveillance, none of which were known to be directly connected to one another, had been photographed over the past week with the same woman. She was a temp and contract odd-jobber named Cathy Hulme, who had no previous significant connection with extremists, and no criminal record.

The reports suggested that Hulme must be selling something – products, substances or information – that people out to stir up trouble might find useful. However, discreet investigations had uncovered nothing that the woman could possibly be providing. It was hard to tell if any items were being bought and sold, for most of the meetings took place in vehicles, where small packages could theoretically be exchanged and tucked away into bags or pockets.

Only one of the suspected sympathisers who had been in touch with her this past week had been found to have any sort of prior connection with her: Steve Rowe, a dog trainer, had a girlfriend who ran a temp staffing agency called Nifty Response – and this agency had Cathy Hulme on its books.

Mycroft made phone calls and asked to see the more detailed reports on the case. They arrived in his inbox within two minutes, and what he read in them did not disperse his gut sense that this was cause for concern.

"Anthea," he called through his office door, which was open at the moment as no visitors were expected.

"Yes, sir?" his trusty deputy appeared immediately, her eyes on her phone as usual. One day, he thought, she would find that it had been radioactively sealed to the palm of her hand.

"I need you to follow up on this case involving Cathy Hulme," he said. "Right now, if possible."

"The one that landed in your inbox ten minutes ago, sir?" she asked. "Yes, I've read it."

How she could get things done so swiftly and efficiently while staying permanently glued to whatever was so fascinating on her phone screen was a mystery even Mycroft had never solved to his complete satisfaction.

"I need the home services to keep a sharper eye on this woman. Something isn't right, and I have a feeling that it's not the 'not right' that the reports are telling me it is," he complained, realising only as the words emerged just how convoluted they were. But it hardly mattered – Anthea always understood what he was saying when he was in an irritable mood.

"You'd rather keep an eye on her than on the people she's selling whatever to?" Anthea clarified.

"Yes," Mycroft confirmed. "And get me better pictures of her – these shots are dismal. The photo from her identification documents – even the miserable thumbnail from the contract-job agencies – is lord knows how many years old, and the recent surveillance shots give no clear view of her features. Isn't there an angle from which she can be properly photographed without that cap or that curtain of dirty blonde hair obscuring everything above her chin?"

"Yes, sir. On it. If you intend to be at the Chinese ambassador's dinner on time, you will have to change into your dinner suit _now_ , sir."

"I know," he sighed, making shooing motions at her. "Please close the door after you and don't come back in without knocking first, unless you want an eyeful of me in my pants."

"That would be nice," Anthea murmured as she left his office. As a parting revelation just before she closed the door, she added drolly: "I know some people who would pay very good money for pictures of you in your pants – in fact, Leonard from the Treasury has already offered me a price for any I can obtain. He'll pay _much_ more if even the pants are gone from the pictures."

"Fire Leonard from the Treasury!" Mycroft ordered, but the door was already firmly shut.

He took his dinner suit out of the narrow cabinet-cum-wardrobe in the corner of the office, where he'd hung it this morning, and changed into it. He didn't want to go to this event, but he had a good relationship with Ambassador Luo, and it was best to keep the man particularly close and happy at this time as he'd provided so much help to them with Zhu Zheng's case and the items taken from Henry Carter's flat.

The guests this evening would be people who had been instrumental in the success of a recent publicity and fundraising drive that was tacitly ( _very_ tacitly) approved by the Chinese government. The funds raised had been channelled towards supporting animal-rights volunteers who were reaching out to people in remote parts of China in an effort to get communities on their side as they attempted to eradicate bear farms and the practice of killing domestic dogs for meat.

Mycroft hadn't given up much for that cause, he felt, but he had done his bit by bringing various interested (and wealthy) parties along to support Ambassador Luo, who'd been the guest of honour at the fundraiser. However, the little he had done had been perceived as a lot, and the ambassador had personally called him on the phone to follow up on the mailed invitation.

At the hotel, once dinner was underway, there was no sign that it would be anything other than a boring evening, as Lady Smallwood had predicted. Until he noticed that one of the servers three tables away from him – a petite woman of about 30, with brown hair pinned neatly back into a bun – was showing minuscule signs of nervousness that probably no one other than Mycroft or Sherlock (or Moriarty and Eurus) would have picked up.

He scanned the guests, managers and other staff in the private room, and saw no cause for any of the people present to be the reason for the woman's unsettled micro-twitches. Something wasn't right with her.

He kept half an eye on the woman while continuing the dullest conversation imaginable with the leggy socialite on his left and the baroness on his right. When he managed to engineer the talk so that the two women began to directly exchange "Omigod, that exact same thing happened to me in the Maldives!" exclamations with each other, he excused himself with a hint that he just might need the loo, and left the dining room. Stationing himself outside one of the doors where his own security personnel were parked along with those of other diplomats and VIPs, he asked Luke, his PADP bodyguard for the evening, to hold the door ajar and keep an eye on the server.

Mycroft checked his phone and read a message from Anthea, which said that surveillance had lost track of Cathy Hulme this afternoon and were still attempting to locate her. However, one of the extremist suspects previously photographed with Hulme had been picked up by police today on a charge of getting into a scuffle with a neighbour, and when MI5 had asked the Yard to use this opportunity to try getting out of him what he might have been purchasing from Hulme, he'd just laughed and said the coppers could search him, his flat, his car, his girlfriend's flat and his mother's flat all they pleased – he'd been buying nothing he shouldn't have.

That was when something twigged in Mycroft's busy head, and he rang Anthea at once, saying to her the moment she answered: "Those unrelated suspects weren't converging on Cathy Hulme because she had something to sell. They'd been looked up separately _by_ her because _she_ wanted to buy something from _them_. Can I confirm that right now, surveillance still does not have eyes on her?"

"That is correct, sir. We're checking streetcam and security cam footage, but that always takes a while."

"Don't bother. I think I know where she is. Send a team to my location now. Something's underway."

Mycroft ended the call and spoke to Luke and two Chinese security men, giving them instructions to find a means of quietly and discreetly getting that server – whom he was very certain was Cathy Hulme, with her hair coloured and styled differently – out of the dining room. He also pulled one of the hotel banquet managers aside and asked him which agency had supplied the additional servers needed for this evening's party – and contract workers _must_ have been engaged, because no hotel ever had enough permanent staff to work large events. He already knew what one of the manager's answers would be: the Nifty Response Staffing Agency.

Luke was still holding the door ajar and watching Hulme, while the Chinese security guys on the outside radioed their colleagues inside the dining room. Mycroft, Luke and the Chinese personnel outside then stepped back into the room to give the men inside visual cues as to which server they were targeting. Unfortunately, Hulme must have picked up on the tension in the body language of the bodyguards inside as they sidled towards her, because she herself suddenly tensed, snatched up a long, sharp ceramic knife from a platter that the staff had been carving the roast beef on, and lunged at Ambassador Luo.

Immediately, Mycroft knew that something else was going on other than the obvious, because her actions were so pointless, so far short of any hope of succeeding, and so clumsy that the attempted assault could be nothing other than… _oh, fuck, it was a ploy_.

As she was tackled to the floor by the ambassador's men and drew the attention of everyone by screaming like a banshee, biting and thrashing, Mycroft's brain worked furiously. The whole place – indeed, the whole hotel – would have been swept by Chinese, British and private security from roof to basement prior to this dinner. Every member of staff, including contract workers, would have been searched before being allowed entry. Even guests with larger-than-mini-clutch-sized bags would have gone through security checks. It was _extremely_ unlikely that anyone could have succeeded in installing standard explosives or smuggling regular weapons into the hotel. So what was going to be used here? Because Hulme was definitely planning to use _something_ against them. But what?

At the same time, his eyes frantically scanned the rest of the room – a difficult task, now that guests and staff were abuzz with confusion, moving around and all asking one another what was going on. It took him far too long to spot another server – a perfectly harmless-looking woman of about fifty – fiddling with the sound system in one corner, and clutching remote controls that looked like the ones used to work the smart lighting system, air conditioning and audio-visual system for the dining room.

At the very moment he spotted this older woman, and just before he could speak or point her out to Luke, Hulme suddenly fell completely still and silent in the hands of the bodyguards, lifted her head from the carpet, and spat out these cutting words: "Fell for it, you morons."

The older woman in the corner pressed a button on the sound system, and at once, everybody in the room was incapacitated by a horrifyingly loud, high-pitched and drawn-out squeal coming over the speakers at a frequency so damaging that it was impossible to do anything other than cover their ears and cringe.

Only Hulme and the older woman – Mycroft belatedly realised they must have been wearing deep-set ear plugs – were moving fast, easily and freely. From his hunched position, fingers pressing the tragus of each ear hard over his ear canals to block out the sound, he saw Hulme lift a revolver from one of the Chinese bodyguards who had been restraining her only two seconds ago, and Mycroft groaned internally – foreign ambassadors based in Britain were not supposed to have armed security, but some of them always sneaked one or two weapons through.

Although the man braved the high-frequency noise for a few seconds to try to get his revolver back from her, he wasn't fast enough to stop her from holding the revolver to Ambassador Luo's head. Hulme then slipped her other arm around the ambassador's throat and forced him backwards with her into a corner of the room, where the walls would be behind her while the ambassador was her human shield from the front.

At the same time, the older woman who was her accomplice operated the computerised systems through the remote and a smartphone she was holding, and Mycroft saw that guests and staff who were trying to shoulder the doors to get out of the room were unable to do so, because they were now locked.

Then the projector that was part of the room's audio-visual systems flashed a series of stark messages peppered with typographical errors onto the projector screen that had scrolled down against one wall:

"DONT TRY TO LEAVE THIS ROOM OR STOP US"

"TRY ANYTHING AGAINST US,OUR FRIEND OUTSIDE PUMPS THIS ROOM FULL OF NICE TOXINS FOR YOU TO INHALE"

"IT WON'T KILL YOU IMMEDIATELY, BUT ENOUGHH OF IT WILL KILL YOU EVENTUALY AND PAINFULLY"

"YEAH IT WILL KILL US TOO EVENTUALY BUT WE DONT CARE ANYMORE"

"TRY ANYTHING FUNNY, THE AMBASADOR DIES ON THE SPOT"

"WE'VE RIGGED THE REST OF THE HOTEL WITH BOMBS TOO."

"WE'LL LET YOU GO ONCE THE AMBASADOR AND YOU IMPORTANT FOLKS DO THE RIGHT THING"

"WHATS THE RIGHT THING?"

"THE RIGHT THING IS TO PUT TO DEATH THE CHINESE PIG WHO CAME INTO THIS COUNTRY AND MURDERED MY FIANCE AND NELLIE'S SON"

"I MISS MY FIANCE"

"NELLIE MISSES HER SON"

"MY FIANCE WAS HENRY CARTER"

"HENRY HAD HIS THROAT SLIT BY A CHINESE PIG WHO JUST WALKED INTO OUR COUNTRY AND DID WHATEVER HE LIKED AND IS STILL ALIVE AND WELL"

"WE'LL LET YOU GO ONCE THE PIG IS DEAD"

Luke and the other PADP officer stationed at the room had uncovered one ear each, raised a shoulder to protect that ear, and struggled with one hand to retrieve the ear protectors in one of their pouches. It took them a minute to put in their earplugs, then they drew their Glocks, one aimed at what little could be seen of Hulme behind the ambassador, the other at the older woman who was presumably Henry Carter's mother.

At once, the screeching sound coming over the speakers was cut off, and in the abrupt silence that fell, Hulme shouted out from behind Ambassador Luo: "Go a'ead. Shoot Nellie if you like – she don't care, cos she's already dying, in't she? Or try to shoot me if y'like. But th' moment you shoot Nellie or me – tha's if you don't hit th' ambassador first – I'll pull my trigger – don't think I don't know how t' use this – and our friend will release the toxins into this room. Wanta inhale it? Wanta find out what it'll do to you all? Go a'ead, then. Shoot us if you like."

Mycroft thought through the scenario fast and concluded that there was no way for him to be absolutely certain that Hulme and her associates had not pre-planted a toxin ready for dispersal in the ventilation, sprinkler, air-freshening or other systems in the room. He simply could not be sure that it hadn't somehow been done. And as they didn't know what the toxin was, he couldn't risk exposing every person in this room to it.

The two PADP officers glanced at Mycroft for his orders while exchanging, under their breaths, radio communications with their team members who'd been stationed at the hotel entrance all evening. Mycroft shook his head discreetly at them. The conclusion from both Mycroft and their fellow officers was apparently along the same lines, for both officers lowered their pistols.

Now, it was time to negotiate with Cathy Hulme for their lives.

* * *

 **Note:** I've gone with the theory that Elizabeth is the name Lady Smallwood uses for formal and professional purposes, but Alicia is the name used privately by people who know her better.


	8. Urgency, Deception, Unease, Danger

**Urgency, Deception, Unease, Danger**

Urgency.

"Lestrade!" Sherlock yelled over the phone to be heard above the traffic as he and John ran down North Audley Street. "Do you have what I asked for?"

"Sherlock," Lestrade's voice was faint against the din of car horns and human voices complaining about how many roads the police had closed off. "I've compiled what I can – it's a mess here – it's just… too many cooks."

"I don't need to know that, Lestrade," Sherlock snapped. "The _doors_ – what did the hotel managers say about the damned doors?"

"Donovan spoke to hotel security. Dimmock talked to Chinese embassy security and a PADP officer who'd checked the room. Everyone says the locks are mechanical, not automatic. They had to have been rigged to be secured on command like that."

"Who had the opportunity to do that?" Sherlock demanded, as John grabbed the back of his coat and tugged him out of the way of a motorcycle weaving through the line of cars. "Staff and security must have been in and out of the dining room all evening – how was it that both doors were shut just when the hostage takers wanted them locked?"

"Seems that when Mycroft went back in with two PADP officers and two of the ambassador's team, security outside were tasked with preventing guests and staff from returning to the dining room. Whoever happened to leave the room then could do so, but no one was let back in. So in fact, both doors _were_ closed when Hulme sprang at the ambassador. Her accomplices must have triggered whatever it was that locked them. Hotel managers couldn't open the doors from outside with their keys, then everyone was evacuated in view of the bomb and poison threats."

"Any idea about the mechanism?"

"When PADP scanned for electronic, explosive and digital devices at 1pm, the room was clean," Lestrade said. "Embassy security says the same. But one embassy officer and one banquet manager have admitted that after the room was handed over to embassy security, at about 3pm, the security chief claimed something in the locks was setting off his device detectors. He fiddled with them, then pronounced them clean. He wouldn't have had time to overhaul them, but it seems those old hook bolts are long and large, and the strikers and lock plates have deep holes. He could have slipped tiny squib-like charges into the gaps and triggered them later to throw the bolts into the plates and jam the locks."

"The Chinese embassy security chief tampered with the doors? What's his motive?"

"I can't hear you – what did you say?" Lestrade asked. "Where are you, anyway?"

"North Audley Street," Sherlock said. "A cabbie we flagged down in Baker Street said traffic was backed up almost to Portman Square, so we're on foot. It's only a little over a mile to Berkeley Street."

"I'll tell my teams to expect you at the Berkeley Square end of the cordon," Lestrade replied.

"Anthea's there, she'll get us through," Sherlock told him. "What about my other questions? We know the dining room has no windows. So did anyone touch the ventilation shafts or access the area above the false ceilings? Was anything unexpected brought in today?"

"Let me get to a quieter spot," Lestrade muttered. "Okay… one of our vans is over here…"

Sherlock heard a muffled exchange of conversation, then a vehicle door slamming shut, and Lestrade's end of the line became quieter.

"Sorry, Sherlock… yeah, about that – it's not looking good for the embassy security chief – name of Huang Mingyi. Even his own guys admit that he personally waved through a load of floral arrangements today, which was puzzling, cos the hotel had already set out the flowers approved earlier. Huang, however, claimed these were for… erm… _fengshui_ reasons? Seems they were arranged by Bloomin' Garden in Leicester Square – we're trying to contact them," Sherlock could hear the rapid flipping of paper as Lestrade checked his notebook. "As for the ventilation shafts and false-ceiling boards, after PADP checked these before noon, CCTV footage shows no one entering rooms with access to these areas."

"Still, we can't discount the possibility that Huang could have planted toxic substances above the ceiling or in the ventilation system after the room was handed over to the embassy team. Cameras don't cover every angle."

"We can't discount it, but it's unlikely. That dining room has no ready access points through the decorative ceiling," Lestrade said. "The flower arrangements are a more probable Trojan horse – but we don't know yet if there _are_ toxins, or if Cathy Hulme is lying. It's just that at the start, we thought she had to be telling porkies about having a 'friend' ready to pump chemicals into the room, since our inspection cameras showed nothing in place to enable that, then we learnt about Huang, who's disappeared. So honestly, Sherlock, I'm not sure what to think now."

"I can tell you she's lying about planting explosives around the hotel," Sherlock grunted as John tugged him out of a cyclist's path. "It looked so by-the-way in her miserable, misspelt projection show, it's a bluff. Maybe Huang had tiny squibs, but there's no way he promised her large bombs everywhere."

"Our bomb disposal teams are inching inwards, and they've found nothing yet, so you could be right."

"What about the employment agency owner and her boyfriend?" Sherlock asked.

"Penny Barr and Steve Rowe – yes, DI Hopkins' team is questioning them," Lestrade said. "The Chinese embassy _did_ ask the hotel to use Nifty Response's staff for this dinner. The banquet manager was told it was for security reasons. Barr, however, has confessed that she accepted a bribe from a Chinese embassy official to include Hulme and Samuels among the staff sent to the hotel. Hulme was on their books, but Samuels wasn't. The official told Barr that Hulme would use a different name, and there'd be no security-clearance problem with Samuels, since it was a request from the embassy."

"We're almost at Berkeley Square," Sherlock said. "Meet you where Anthea is – look for the Bentley limo. Where are you?"

"The Piccadilly end of Stratton Street. I'll go over in a few minutes if I can."

Sherlock and John raced on, dodging vehicles and people, until they reached the security cordon, where Anthea's impressive clearance levels got them through. Lestrade trotted towards them from the other end, and all three piled into the rear passenger compartment after Anthea and shut the doors.

"All right, the next thing I have to say is that that woman is _not_ Carter's fiancee," Sherlock insisted fiercely to Lestrade and Anthea, as if there had been no interruptions to his phone conversations with them. "I don't care what CCTV showed of her message. This whole picture is _wrong_. Why haven't you found out about _that_ side of things yet, or have you just failed to update me?"

"Our teams have pretty much arrived at the same conclusion," Lestrade replied softly from the rear-facing seat beside John's, diagonally across from Sherlock. Like Sherlock and John, he was panting from his run, but his voice was steady, and his hands hovered a few inches above his thighs, palms down in a calming gesture. "But no one knows what's really going on yet. We're analysing everything we have, Sherlock, so help us look at it too."

"Those personal videos uploaded from the dining room after the screeching sound was cut off – the way Hulme speaks, the way she looks, the way she _spells_! – and Carter with his snobbish lifestyle and glamorous women… Hulme's not his type _at all_. There's no way they'd have been engaged," Sherlock growled.

"We're checking all that," Anthea said firmly. "The most important tasks for you now are to help us puzzle out whether Hulme and company are armed with toxins, what they may be, and if you're sure they haven't placed explosives around the hotel. DI Lestrade, I've given MI6 the information you gave me about Huang Mingyi. We hope to get something on him soon."

Sherlock saw that Lestrade and Anthea had noticed his agitation, and were settling him and corralling his runaway thoughts in businesslike fashion.

"We've speed-combed through footage from before, during and after the hotel was security-swept in preparation for the event," Anthea added. "Nothing points to major explosive devices being set up. But it's not possible to know what went on in every room. So we need you to look at it from another angle while we keep working on the rest. Remember what you and I discussed on the phone an hour ago. Remember what we're here to do."

"The picture I'm getting from the data you're both giving me is that Huang Mingyi facilitated what Hulme needed at the hotel, but left the details to her," Sherlock said. "What's happened in that dining room smacks of unpredictable amateurism – which makes it dangerous _precisely because_ it's amateurish and unpredictable. Except for someone telling Hulme where the bodyguard's revolver was strapped and the doors locking like that, I detect no other governing hand in the footage Anthea sent me. It's a bloody mess, and Hulme is winging it even if she doesn't know it, because she's acting as if she thinks she's in charge. Someone instigated her to do this, let her plan it so she would believe she was in command, helped her put things in place, then abandoned her to it. Has anyone found Huang yet?"

"We're searching," Anthea said. "His colleagues are looking for him too. The ones I've spoken to genuinely do not seem to know what he's been up to."

Sherlock looked intently at Anthea, Lestrade and John in turn before he came to a decision and gestured for the reports Anthea had brought from Mycroft's office, muttering tersely: "Give me those."

He sped through the details Mycroft's team had compiled about the men Cathy Hulme had met this past week, starting from the day after Carter's body was identified by his mother. He wasn't interested in the reports Mycroft had read earlier. His brother and Anthea would have picked up everything important there, which Anthea had summarised over the phone. What Sherlock had demanded the moment he'd called her after receiving her message about Mycroft being in trouble was the nitty-gritty MI5 had gathered over months about the four far-right extremist sympathisers, long before Hulme came onto the scene. He wanted to see what these men were about, and what she went to them for.

He scanned each sheet and read files on tablet that they hadn't had time to print. They covered every job, hobby, associate and leaning these men were known to have. Mycroft was better at this sort of thing – identifying patterns in a mess of facts and figures – whereas Sherlock was more gifted at pouncing on peculiar details and extrapolating from there. But he had to think like Mycroft now.

Computer-like, he analysed, discarded, inferred, compared and rearranged the facts: one was on the dole, one a security guard, one a dog trainer, one a second-hand car salesman… all four football fans, minor thuggish behaviour at Arsenal and Spurs matches… insignificant… two were dog lovers, one kept bulldogs, the other a boxer, they'd recently dated veterinary clinic receptionists… maybe, keep in view… two previously worked in supermarkets, one at a deli, one at a grocer's… nothing there… one's parents were deceased, another's mother was chronically ill, two had retired dads with mums working part-time, one in a pub, one in a betting shop… no… siblings ran the gamut from an engineer to a supermarket cashier to a bartender to two unemployed individuals to a restaurant worker to one in prison for theft and three still in secondary school… maybe, set aside… close friends included janitors, vet clinic techs, delivery drivers, bartenders, a private-clinic nurse, a store manager, a security guard, a department store salesperson, a cook… maybe, keep in view… wives and girlfriends came and went, current ones were an ice cream parlour worker, a high-street fashion-store salesperson, one on the dole and, of course, the one Anthea said ran the agency Hulme worked for… surveillance reports said nothing of a large size appeared to have been exchanged between Hulme and the men – no one had hauled cases back and forth… something had been bought by Hulme, though – information, or contacts, or small items she could slip into the large, slouchy bag she carried…

Lestrade's phone rang. "Donovan, what have you got on Hulme and Carter? Right… mm-hmm… so they weren't… okay… yes… got it. Thanks. Call me again if you learn anything more." He relayed the information Donovan had obtained: "No one can verify that Carter and Hulme were ever engaged, although they were childhood friends growing up in council housing in Hounslow. Nellie Samuels _is_ Carter's mother. She's been fighting what looks like a losing battle against cancer."

"Told you they weren't engaged," Sherlock grumbled, reading the tablet files.

"After Carter's death, we looked into his background. No security concerns with his mother, who identified and claimed his body," Lestrade explained. "We know Carter made something of himself with his charm and intelligence, did well in school, learnt how to dress and speak and carry himself well to leave his council-housing beginnings behind him. But he wanted more money, fast, so he preyed on lonely women. He spent a lot of it on his mother's health – her breast cancer had spread, and though she responds well to treatment each time, it keeps reappearing elsewhere. It's in her kidneys and lungs now, so she may think she hasn't much time left. Carter paid for private treatments after he got upset with how long she had to wait on the NHS. As for Hulme, she didn't come up in our checks into his background. But Donovan's just spoken to family and friends of Samuels, and they say she'd been unhappy about her son running around here and abroad with older women, and his obsession with his appearance. She complained repeatedly to relatives about Henry getting Botox injections, saying it was ridiculous at his age. And she'd turned to Hulme months ago as an old friend of Henry's. We think she had a deluded hope of drawing her son away from the other women and back to a simple girl from his childhood."

"Looks like both Nellie Samuels and Cathy Hulme are totally delusional, if they think Nellie's approval of Cathy makes her Henry's fiancée," John observed, shaking his head as he looked through the printouts Sherlock was done with.

"In some Chinese communities, posthumous engagements and weddings are carried out so the deceased won't have to remain unmarried in the afterlife," Sherlock mumbled inattentively, still focusing on the documents.

"Maybe that was among the details Huang Mingyi used to bait Hulme and Samuels into doing what they've done," John noted. "The two women seem highly suggestible, while Huang could very well be highly manipulative. If a genius like Eurus could control extremely intelligent people, why can't a person with above-average manipulativeness convince weak-minded people to do as he suggests?"

"Where would Huang have met them?" Sherlock wondered. "Surveillance hasn't seen Hulme with anyone from the Chinese embassy, so maybe he approached Samuels? No, Samuels isn't running the show… he probably approached Hulme, or Hulme and Samuels together… it would have been before Hulme was being monitored, which means… right after Carter died…"

"The morgue," John concluded. "I'll call Molly. She wasn't on duty that day – she was helping Mrs Hudson watch Rosie for us. But she'd know whom to ask."

On speakerphone, Molly confirmed that the Home Office pathologist who'd performed Carter's autopsy was Dr Ramachandran. "But John, you said you wanted to know about the family identifying his body – well, it was the next day, when I was back. Dr Rama was still there, and he and Anita – his assistant – were handling the family fine, so I didn't step in. There was an older woman Anita later said was Carter's mother, looking shell-shocked, and a younger woman who was _extremely_ upset – Anita said she was Carter's friend or girlfriend. When I went for a late lunch that same day at Beppe's with Jilly from Admin, I saw the two women again, in a car along Giltspur Street, with a man who looked East Asian."

"Just a moment, Molly," John said. "Anthea, do we have a picture of Huang?"

"Sending it," Anthea stated briskly. "Dr Hooper, this is Mycroft Holmes' assistant speaking. I've sent you a photo. Please see if it's the same man you saw with Carter's mother and friend."

Molly took a minute to view the picture on her phone before saying uncertainly: "It _could_ be, but the man had sunglasses on, so I can't be sure. Nothing about the picture, however, rules out the possibility that it's the same person."

"Thanks, Molly," Sherlock said.

"You're there, Sherlock?" Molly asked, sounding surprised, as it was the first time she'd heard his voice in this conversation. "Oh, of course – if John's there, you'd be too, wouldn't you?"

"Molly, I'll give you the details when this is over, okay?" Sherlock said, patiently. "In the meantime, please ask Dr Ramachandran for anything he can tell you about his conversation with Carter's mother and friend, and text John, me or Anthea."

"I think Dr Rama's taking the late shift tonight. I'll try to catch him before he buries himself in his first chest cavity… not literally… well, you know what I mean. Message you later."

Once they ended the call, Sherlock asked: "What does Huang Mingyi _want_? What the devil has he to do with this? Does he just hate his own mission chief?"

"MI6 has something," Anthea murmured, scrolling through a new e-mail. "Huang is very possibly the same Huang Mingyi who was a child when his father was prosecuted in China in 2000 for corruption, in the crackdown that also snared Zhu Zheng's father. They have very little because of the secrecy surrounding these matters, but they suspect that Zhu Zheng wasn't implicated in the crackdown because he agreed to expose his own father and others. If Huang's father was taken down because Zhu Zheng told all to the enemies of those who were eventually executed, then once Huang realised Zhu Zheng had been arrested in Britain for killing Carter, he might have seen it as a chance to get back at Zhu. As chief of security of the Chinese embassy here, Huang would definitely have been among the first to know about Zhu's arrest."

"By instigating the wannabe fiancée of the man Zhu killed to hold the Chinese ambassador hostage? How does _that_ work?" Lestrade asked doubtfully.

"Huang abandoned Hulme to her own devices after facilitating her needs on site…" Sherlock mumbled, thinking aloud.

"He never cared exactly what Hulme was going to do in that dining room…" John murmured, catching Sherlock's line of thought.

"… because all he needed was for her to provide a massive public distraction… and an excuse," Sherlock realised.

"An _excuse_?" Anthea echoed, tensing. "Huang wanted to get at Zhu, so he engineered this as a pretext for urgently visiting Zhu in prison, _without_ his colleagues. He could tell prison officials he needed to see Zhu at once to find out if he knew the hostage-takers, and…"

"Wandsworth Prison," Lestrade muttered, getting on his phone. "That's where Zhu's on remand. I hate to say this, but though it's improved of late, Wandsworth hasn't had the best reputation for screening visitors – lots of people have smuggled drugs in. What's worse is, they tend to be less particular with checks on embassy officials and legal counsel. Official and legal visits are also in private rooms, or at least a reasonable distance from everyone else, for privacy. Hell, anything could happen."

"I don't care what happens to _those_ bloody men, I care what's happening in that dining room!" Sherlock snapped.

"I'll make this call outside. I need to talk to Donovan and Dimmock, anyway," Lestrade said calmly, opening the car door and getting out. "I'll be back, all right, Sherlock? If we can prevent one more murder, whoever it is, we have to try."

Sherlock opened his mouth again to snap at Lestrade, but the DI shut the door, and Anthea closed a strong hand over Sherlock's wrist to literally drag his attention back to what she needed him to do.

"Sherlock," she said, eyes stern, beautiful face grim. "I know you're agitated, but I need you to go back to the details about the men Hulme met, because I think we both suspect she was buying the toxin from them. So get cracking. Tell me what she may have bought, and how likely it is to be fatal, so we can decide if we should break into the dining room, or if it's safer to talk her down. The revolver she's holding to the ambassador's head is one thing, but it's a known factor. The toxin she claims to have is what we _really_ need to know about _now_."

Sherlock glared, but she was right. Anthea was bloody right. He needed to refocus. Back to the details… the veterinary clinics, the security guard, the private clinic nurse… and, _and_ … most crucially, Carter's mother's complaints about her son getting Botox injections, which Sherlock intuitively knew would have put the idea of "nice toxins" into Hulme's head…

"Botulinum toxin," he stated, as it came together in his mind.

"What?" John asked. "As in…?"

"Veterinarians _do_ use Botox, don't they?" Sherlock asked him.

" _I_ don't know… wait… yes!" John exclaimed. "A vet I knew a few years ago mentioned she'd Botoxed dogs who were suffering from facial muscle problems that affected their eyelids."

Sherlock sped over the intel. A close friend of Doug Andrews was a lab tech at a Feltham veterinary clinic, probably the one to check the stock each day; Richard Hardie was a security guard for a Spitalfields building complex which housed aesthetic clinics – if one had a doctor on holiday, it might be closed, with no one checking on the medical stock; Neil Ford was on-again, off-again with a veterinary clinic receptionist who might have been persuaded to give him a set of keys; Steve Rowe, boyfriend of the woman who ran the Nifty Response agency, had a good friend who was a nurse in a private aesthetic clinic in Soho. _And_ he had a brother who worked for a restaurant in Fulham called Jade Garden – sounded like a Chinese restaurant – possible connection to Huang? Maybe Huang had gone to Rowe before for recreational drugs or unregistered weapons, and recommended him to Hulme as a starting point for obtaining stolen goods? Rowe and the other men would have been the ones to put into Hulme's head the xenophobic language she used. As for how Hulme, with her odd jobs, could afford to pay them to steal for her, Samuels must have supplied the cash. Carter had cared for his mother; he would have given her money in addition to financing her medical treatments with his dishonest earnings. If Samuels thought she was as good as dead from cancer, and devastated by her son's death, she would have handed any amount of money to the girl she'd hoped her son would marry, for even a remote chance at revenge.

"Anthea," Sherlock said. "Have you already rounded up the other three men? Good. Have your interrogators tell them we know what they've stolen." He gave her what he'd deduced from the data, then added: "Ask each man how much Botox he sold to Hulme, and I'll tell you how dangerous it's likely to be. Hulme is lying about having a friend outside to disperse the toxins – she may have been thinking of Huang, but he's not waiting on her orders. The Botox is in the room with her."

"Right," Anthea said, and started making calls and sending messages.

"Vials of Botox actually don't have that much botulinum toxin in them," John commented.

"I know," Sherlock said. "Only about 0.73 nanograms in a 100-unit vial of crystallised Botox. To kill via inhalation, as Hulme has threatened, it needs about 2 nanograms per kilogram of body weight. That adds up to a ridiculous 200-plus 100U vials of Botox just to kill one person weighing 70 kilograms. Hulme can't have got the men, in so little time, to steal some 11,000 vials unnoticed, which is what she'd require to kill the thirty-nine guests, ten staff and nine security personnel in that room."

"Which means there's hope that what she has isn't as lethal as she thinks it is," John said optimistically.

"Possibly," Sherlock agreed. "But we can't assume the toxin will be evenly distributed through the room. If the vials are hidden in those large vases CCTV showed, and she plans to smash the vases along with the vials, some people may be disproportionately exposed to it. So even if it doesn't seriously harm everyone, I can't guarantee it won't kill a few."

"That means we still can't charge in there and shoot her and Samuels."

"Maybe we should, if we can," Sherlock growled.

"But you know, it sounds like those women are suggestible people being used by Huang," John pointed out. "It would be good to avoid killing them."

"If they hurt Mycroft, they'll wish they were dead," Sherlock stated bluntly, his tightly suppressed feelings breaking loose after he'd forced them down while working on the puzzle, trying not to panic, for Mycroft's sake.

"Sherlock, I know you're worried…"

"I swear, if they hurt Mycroft, I'll _kill_ them," he hissed.

"They're focusing on the Chinese ambassador."

"Mycroft will prioritise Ambassador Luo's safety over his own. If there's any sign that the ambassador is about to be shot or poisoned, he will put himself between him and the bullet or the poison," Sherlock growled.

"But Mycroft _is_ pretty cunning," John tried to reassure him.

"John, when he wants to _personally_ protect someone, his cunning evaporates," Sherlock reminded the doctor. "At Sherrinford, he was trying to protect me, and you saw how absurdly flustered he was. He became calm only when he decided to die for us. If he's protecting the ambassador, he won't be thinking of his own safety at all."

* * *

Deception. This woman was not Henry Carter's fiancée. From what Mycroft knew, Carter had been an avaricious man described variously as "posh-sounding", "snooty" and "charming", seeking a picture-perfect lifestyle far from his humble beginnings. Such a man would not have asked such a woman to be his wife. Perhaps she had been dear to him in his past, but he had surely not planned for her to be in his future. She was no social stepping stone, the antithesis of posh-sounding and picture-perfect.

As for the older woman, implied to be Carter's mother, Mycroft had noted earlier in the evening that she seemed frail, but unremarkable. She had displayed no nervousness, maybe because she cared nothing about what would happen to her tonight. Not visibly sick – between bouts of illness, perhaps. He needed a closer look, but the skin above her collar hinted at the telltale marks of burns from a radiation treatment. Cancer.

Hulme, at the beginning, had carelessly declared that everyone could go ahead and film all they liked, put it up on Youtube and tell everybody justice needed to be done. But people had frantically rung their loved ones and the police, others had tried reasoning with her, and the cacophony and chaos increasingly grated on her. Fifteen minutes later, she had tightened her grip on Ambassador Luo and yelled at everyone to keep quiet, turn their phones off and drop all of them on the table closest to where she was (" _All_ of 'em, mind you, or I'll shoot 'im and lots of you after!"), the same table on which she'd already ordered the armed security personnel to leave their firearms.

Mycroft had sent one final update to Anthea, then he'd swiftly extracted his SIM card and memory cards and slipped the tiny objects inside the hem of his jacket through gaps deliberately left in the stitching. Although Hulme and her older accomplice looked incapable of cracking his phone code, it was standard procedure that if he was in another's power, he should disable any gadgets on which he had sensitive information. In an extreme situation with a different type of person in control, he would have immediately destroyed the cards.

This woman, however, only _thought_ she knew what she was doing. Her body language told all to Mycroft. Someone had put ideas into her head and left her to it, and it was fine until she realised she was on her own, with only one frail partner. Unfortunately, this made her more dangerous than an intelligent or seasoned criminal; her atypical behaviour might be illogical.

An hour in, she had grown restless and was agitated by the swivelling CCTV cameras in two corners of the room. She had ordered Chris, the PADP officer who was Luke's partner this evening, to climb onto a chair and tie napkins over the cameras. She then sat on the floor at the end of the room away from where she'd ordered everyone else to. She had the ambassador seated in front of her, the Smith & Wesson Bodyguard revolver trained on him – she'd known enough to release the safety lever earlier, and Mycroft wondered who had taught her about this firearm. The table holding the phones and the Glocks stood between Hulme and the ambassador, and the rest of the room.

A further half hour later, she became angered by the ringtones and buzzing of phones whose owners had forgotten to turn them off before leaving them on the table, and she told Carter's mother to shut them down. She also asked Carter's mother to pick up one of the PADP officers' pistols from the table and train it on the guests and staff to shut them all up, because the sound of their voices was annoying her.

Yet another half hour from that point, and Hulme was fretting, asking Ambassador Luo angrily: "Why aren't you hurrying 'em to bring the pig 'ere so I can shoot 'im?"

"Madam," said Luo Qifan calmly. "You've hardly allowed me to make any phone calls, have you?"

Steady voice, no anger or panic. Mycroft got along well with Luo Qifan for many reasons, not least of which was that he was equal to any situation, and often able to inject light humour even into dire problems. They were close in age, and saw eye-to-eye surprisingly often even if they had to sit on opposite ends of the bargaining table when their respective countries did not agree.

"Y' think this is funny?" Hulme demanded furiously. "One of your people came 'ere and killed Henry and no one's punished 'im! He caused your own people to die too and y' don't care? There's even folks campaignin' to keep 'im here so he won' be executed in China. How can they do that when he _murdered_ Henry?"

Both Mycroft and the ambassador immediately noted Hulme's words about Zhu having caused the deaths of people in China too. _Interesting. I wonder who told her that._

"I am sorry for your loss, Madam, and for Henry's mother losing her son," said Ambassador Luo, nodding at the older woman seated on a chair a few metres away. "Regardless of which country holds and prosecutes the man who did this, he will be punished according to the law."

"He slit Henry's throat!" Hulme cried. "Henry was the best thing in my whole life – the _best_ thing ever – and this guy just came and cut 'is throat! Nellie'll pick up that carving knife and cut yours if you don't get 'im here sooner so we can kill him ourselves!"

Again, Mycroft saw that both he and the ambassador had picked up on her use of the word "sooner". _What is she expecting to happen?_

"You _can_ kill me," the ambassador admitted. "But that won't get you what you want."

"The ambassador is right," Mycroft spoke up clearly enough to be heard from the back of the room, as he rose from his chair and slowly made his way forward, Luke keeping himself between Mycroft and the older woman's pistol. "He isn't the person who can decide what happens to Henry Carter's killer."

"Who're you?" Hulme asked suspiciously.

"My name is Mycroft Holmes. I hold a _minor_ position in the civil service," he stated, ignoring Ambassador Luo's eye-roll at that stock description. "Minor as my post may be, I am a liaison between all the ministries, and I can perhaps tell you how best to proceed from here."

"How?"

"First, I'd like to ask you what you're expecting to happen. Did someone tell you that they would bring the prisoner here if you kept us all in this room at gunpoint?"

"He said he would."

"Who is this 'he'?" Mycroft asked, as patiently as he could.

"He said Zhu Zheng had caused his father's death too," Hulme mumbled, completely mangling the Chinese name.

"What else did he say?" Mycroft asked.

"He said he was just like us, and wanted revenge. Our loved ones had died but Zhu Zheng would get a comfortable life in a British prison and never die for what he'd done. So we should use the ambassador's dinner to do it. He said he'd bring him here. He said we could kill him together."

Mycroft's alarms were going off, as this new information gave him a strong sense that something was wrong in a way that went far beyond two ignorant women taking a foreign ambassador hostage. Someone was manipulating much more behind the scenes, and these women had been roped in because their naivete meant they would give little away to people like himself. He forced out a calm suggestion: "Perhaps I can help by getting in touch with those who can tell us if anything is going on with the prisoner who killed Henry."

"How'll you do that?" she asked.

"Would you allow me to make a phone call?" he asked pleasantly, plastering an artificial smile onto his face.

* * *

Unease.

"I don't get it," John said, sounding puzzled. "Why the urgency?"

"Hmm?" Sherlock asked, resurfacing from his wild and whirling thoughts that refused to go past the silent plea of: _Mycroft, don't you dare die; Mycroft, please don't die; Mycroft…_

"Why the urgency? Zhu Zheng's lived openly in Europe for years," John pointed out. "Huang has been based in Britain for years too. As security chief and a relatively free agent outside China, he could have traced Zhu if he'd wanted. Even if he didn't think of revenge until Zhu was arrested here, why this elaborate plan? Wandsworth Prison, as Greg's noted, hardly has the best record for keeping stuff out. Wouldn't it be easier for Huang to get someone to smuggle a weapon into the prison and do Zhu in at any time? There's no need to rush to use Cathy Hulme or Nellie Samuels. Anyone, any time, would do. Zhu's going nowhere, right? If he's sent back to China, he'll probably be executed; if he stays in Britain, he'll still be in prison. Either way, he'd die in China or Huang could take his time arranging to murder him here. So why this big, big hurry?"

"I'd thought of that once Lestrade sent me the information about Huang's involvement," Anthea said cautiously. "But I don't know what else is behind this. MI6 is already looking into it, but for the fastest result, we need to question Huang."

"Greg's back," John said, opening the door for the DI.

Lestrade climbed in, closed the door, and reported: "Huang was very quick about it, and we were a little slow – seems he got to Wandsworth and managed to see Zhu in private an hour after Hulme grabbed the ambassador. Huang left half an hour ago, but thanks to us alerting the prison about possible danger to Zhu, the guards just checked on Zhu in his cell. His sleeping cellmate noticed nothing, but the guards found Zhu barely responsive, extremities turning purple. In the medical wing, he came to his senses just enough to say that Huang handed him documents in a sealed envelope, and took the documents with him when he left. Zhu's being transferred to a better-equipped hospital as we speak, because Huang most likely poisoned him through the documents with an as-yet-unknown substance that probably works via skin absorption… hang on… another call…"

Lestrade answered the call, listened grimly, then put his phone down and told them: "A motorist called in about a stationary car on the A3 with a dead man in it. It's Huang. Gunshot wound to the head. He'd probably been heading for the M25 towards Folkestone and the Channel Tunnel. Obviously, ballistics needs time to investigate, but a pistol was in the footwell of the driver's seat. We've cautioned them to wait for a hazmat team to check the rest of his car, so we can't as yet retrieve what he may have used to transmit the poison to Zhu."

"Huang shot himself?" John asked.

"Or was made to seem to have shot himself," Anthea said. "I'll see what cameras picked up on the streets and motorways from the time he left Wandsworth to when he was found."

"Huang was using Hulme, and someone else was using Huang," Lestrade murmured. "This other party wanted Zhu dead urgently, then silenced Huang. We need to know whom Zhu was a threat to."

"No, no, no," Sherlock growled, trying to quell the rising panic within so he could remain objective and _think_ better, but it wasn't working, because Mycroft was in there, and the picture had become much _more_ wrong with this new information. "The _why_ hardly matters this very moment – you need to get those people out of the dining room _now_. Hulme and Samuels are nobodies in this, and Hulme will be panicking by now although Samuels doesn't care either way but you need to get Mycroft out of there because it's not botulinum toxin from some pathetic cosmetic Botox vials any more, it's worse – this person behind it has access to far more dangerous substances like what's poisoned Zhu, and they've tricked Hulme…"

"Sherlock, Sherlock! Slow down!" John cried, catching hold of his wildly-gesturing hands, trying to calm him. "Slow down – what do you mean it's not botulinum toxin any more?"

"Lestrade, the florist you said the unexpected flower arrangements came from – any news?" Sherlock demanded.

"Nothing yet."

"Tell the team trying to get in touch with the owner to break into the shop."

"What? No, Sherlock, the police aren't allowed to just break in…"

"Find an excuse!" Sherlock all but yelled. "In the meantime, get me into that fucking dining room!"

"Sherlock! No one can go in there!" Lestrade protested.

Anthea, who had been tapping away furiously on her laptop while conducting rapid conversations with various parties, finally turned to them to say briskly: "You said earlier that the florist was Bloomin' Garden in Leicester Square? My people are in – no, don't ask how, Detective Inspector. They've found five hundred vials of Botox on the premises. That means what Hulme handed them was never hidden in the flower arrangements. The shop belongs to an Olivia Wu, who is also officially the owner of the Jade Garden restaurant that Steve Rowe's brother works for. Olivia Wu is the aunt of Wu Guangrong, one of Ambassador Luo's deputies here in London. However, the paper trail of actual ownership for both businesses leads back to Anatoly Eskov, a Russian with British permanent residency."

"Anatoly Eskov?" Lestrade frowned. "I know that name. Big businessman, suspected of unbelievable amounts of money laundering, drug-dealing, involvement with international-level spying, being the middleman for illegal weapon sales from Serbia, hobnobbing with any party for mutual benefit, never mind if they'd ordinarily be his enemies – he's reputed to have formed ad-hoc alliances with everybody from British far-rightists to Islamic terrorists to run-of-the-mill drug lords to corrupt politicians and businessmen from Russia and China. And though there's no proof of it, he was widely believed to have had a _lot_ to do with the poisoning of Russian citizens in various countries who fell afoul of whatever rules he and his allies had in place. He's rumoured to love stirring up trouble on as big a scale as possible, because business gets better for him in an unsettled environment."

"He always acts through other people – like Olivia Wu and Wu Guangrong, it seems, in this particular case – so no one's ever caught him directly at his dirty work," Anthea added.

Sherlock's mind raced frantically to form a picture that made sense. He began to speak, slowly, as pieces slid into place, speeding up as odd-shaped bits slotted into the gaps: "Let me propose a scenario: Zhu Zheng was blasé about having killed Carter, remember? He calmly sat in Carter's flat engraving the gold bar after slitting his throat, and couldn't even be arsed to leave London right away. It was as if he no longer cared what happened to him, once he'd ended the trail of misery that had begun with his sister's suicide. We now believe that back in 2000, he escaped being implicated in his father's trial because he aided other CCP members in bringing down his father and Huang's father. But the people he helped may have been hiding as much as the enemies they took down – and he knew all their secrets. When he was arrested here, I'll wager that Ambassador Luo's deputy, Wu Guangrong, was among the embassy officials who visited him. It's highly probable that during the interview, Zhu might have indicated that he didn't give a damn whether he lived or died, and no longer cared about keeping secrets. He might have said that anybody who wanted to ask him about anyone's skeletons from the past was welcome to ask away, and he'd talk. If Wu Guangrong's family was among those with lots of bones rattling in their closets, or if Wu and Anatoly Eskov had shared secrets to keep that Zhu knew about from long ago, they'd want to swiftly silence Zhu. They couldn't wait around to kill him later. Wu must have known about Huang Yiming's family grudge against Zhu, and fired him up, telling him there was no better time than to use Carter's simple-minded loved ones to create a stir at the ambassador's private party so Huang could look Zhu up on that pretext, and poison him with whatever Eskov provided. Eskov offered his and Wu's aunt's florist's shop as the place for Hulme to deliver the Botox, and assured Huang he'd put all the vials into the vases, ready for Hulme to smash. But Eskov, for his own screwed-up reasons, wants to poke holes in Britain's relations with China, and a nice way to do that would be to have the Chinese ambassador murdered in London, ostensibly by British far-right extremists. Hulme's choice of Botox wouldn't be effective in the amounts that could fit into the vases, so to keep Hulme believing she was still in charge, Eskov told Huang nothing, leading him and Hulme to think everything was proceeding as she'd planned. However, he put something else into the vases that would be much more lethal than Botox."

"The same thing that poisoned Zhu?" John asked worriedly.

"That poison appears to have worked through cutaneous absorption. It wouldn't be effective in that room. He's used something else that can kill when inhaled."

Anthea was a little pale as she looked up from her laptop. "Sherlock, my intel says Eskov has a reputation for favouring anthrax. He might have figured that anthrax would be risky for Huang to carry into the prison, so maybe he used a different substance for Zhu, but he could easily hide vials or bags of anthrax in those vases."

"Get me into that dining room, evacuate everyone else, and I'll talk Hulme down, and…" Sherlock began his demands again.

He was interrupted by Anthea's phone ringing, and she squinted at the unknown number. But she answered at once, just in case… and the three men in the car with her shot upright as they heard her say: " _Mr Holmes?_ Are you unhurt? You're using someone else's phone because you've disabled your own, am I right? Okay, sir, you _have_ to listen to me…"

* * *

Danger.

"Miss Hulme," Mycroft said firmly, when he lowered the phone from his ear – a random one he'd chosen from the pile on the table because it was the first one that had no screen lock to waste time on. "Catherine Hulme – that is your name, is it not?"

"How'd you know that?" she asked suspiciously.

"You must have taken the advice of Huang Mingyi and Penny Barr to go by the name of a different contract worker from that agency," Mycroft remarked.

Out of Hulme's line of sight, Mycroft saw Ambassador Luo mouth the words: _"_ _黃明意_ _?_ _不可能吧_ _?"_

He gave the ambassador a look that conveyed the dismal truth about his security chief, then continued speaking to Hulme: "Huang and Penny Barr discouraged you from using your name tonight as they feared you might have been observed as you went about purchasing the Botox. But I know who you are, and I can tell you that Huang Mingyi was deceiving you. He had no power to bring Zhu Zheng here just because you'd taken the ambassador hostage. Instead, he went to the prison where Zhu Zheng is, and attempted to kill him there."

"No, he said he'd bring him here!" Hulme protested.

"I'm afraid he no longer has any means of keeping that promise, because Huang himself is dead," Mycroft stated matter-of-factly. "He appears to have been murdered by someone else who was using him to use you."

"You're lying. I don't believe you."

"It's the truth, whether you believe me or not," Mycroft said. "They used you and Nellie Samuels because unlike seasoned criminals, the two of you would set off fewer alarms in experienced security officers. However, you've been betrayed. The poison you think you've brought into this room isn't here – it's been replaced with something else. To ensure that all of us would die even if you failed, we believe that the person using Huang has rigged those flower arrangements with small explosives that he could trigger at any moment. So, knowing that you've been used, would it not make sense to take yourselves as well as all of us out of this room? Then you can live to see justice done for Henry, by the laws of this land. Will you allow the people outside to break open the doors, Miss Hulme, so that all of us can be helped?"

Unexpectedly, Hulme's phone rang. She reached for it with her free hand, never shifting the revolver's sights from the ambassador. It was a video call, and as a familiar voice came over the speaker, Mycroft's heart performed the remarkable feat of both soaring and sinking at the same time.

 _Sherlock._

"Hi Cathy!" Sherlock's voice came clearly over the speaker, and Mycroft caught the barest glimpse of his face from an awkward angle. "I don't know if you know who I am, but my name's Sherlock."

"Oh. You… y-you're that… that guy… I know you – you're that hat detective," she stammered.

"Yeah, that's me. Look, some really bad blokes have been using you, and I want to set things right for everybody, so is it okay with you if I come into the room? It's kind of urgent, Cathy. One of those faceless evil guys is trying to do things the way you wouldn't have, and we're running out of time to stop him. It's just not right that he tricked you. Can you let me in? I know the doors are jammed, but do you mind if I break in?"

"You'll bring people in to stop me," she murmured.

"You have your gun, and I'll bet you've given Nellie a gun too, right? So there's nothing we'd dare to do without your permission. I'm asking your permission to come in. Can I do that?"

"You'll just talk to me?"

"I'll just talk to you. I'm not armed. I'm basically not allowed to carry guns, I don't know why, but I'm just not," he said, and Mycroft could practically _see_ the sulky shrug and eye-roll Sherlock would have given Hulme over the video image.

"O… okaaay… I guess…"

"It could get a bit noisy as we'll have to break the locks, but please don't jump, all right? Please just bear with the racket for a while…"

In less than a minute, sounds of drilling and sawing were heard at one of the doors, then with a few hard thumps and a push, the door cracked open, and Sherlock put his head through.

"Hey, Cathy, can I come in?" he asked.

Mycroft wanted to die. This was the last place in the world he wanted Sherlock to be now, with god only knew how many pounds of anthrax stuffed into those vases and hell knew what sort of remote or timer trigger Eskov might be using…

"You c'n come in alone, no one else, and no one leaves, or I start shootin'," she warned, hooking Ambassador Luo round the neck again and pressing the muzzle of the revolver, safety lever released, hard against the side of his head.

"Okay, I'm alone. See? No one is with me," Sherlock said, stepping inside, coat unfastened, hands in the air by his head to show he wasn't armed. "Cathy, Nellie, it's really important that we don't allow people to use you to do things in a way you never planned to. You've been lied to by Huang Mingyi and a couple of bigger liars behind him, and it's just wrong. Please can you let these people go so they're not caught up in this whole pack of lies you never wanted?"

"Why did that bastard lie to me?" Hulme yelled.

"Probably because he was lied to as well, Cathy. And then those people who lied to him to use you murdered him. We're looking for them, but in the meantime, we can't let them just do what they want while making you take the blame for it."

"I… don't know…" she wailed angrily.

"Can you at least let these guests and servers go, please? None of us has anything to do with this, but the guests and staff are truly without blame here, so please can they go outside first, Cathy?"

"I… I…" she stammered, tightening her grip around Ambassador Luo's neck.

"They have no blame in this, Cathy," Sherlock reminded her.

She was silent for two minutes, then she relented: "Those people over there c'n leave, but no one else comes in, and the ambassador and you, and you with the suit, you all stay."

"Okay, we'll stay while the others leave," Sherlock said. "Everyone, calmly, please – no rushing – through that door, two at a time."

The guests and staff filed out of the room, not quite as quietly or calmly as Mycroft would have liked, but without incident, at least. The ambassador, Mycroft and Sherlock remained with Hulme and Samuels. Luke and Chris did not leave the room entirely but hovered in the doorway.

"When we were kids, Henry promised he'd marry me," Hulme cried to Sherlock. "And he's always said I was a _real_ person, not like the women who gave him money."

"Henry sounds like he was really good to you, and a wonderful son to Nellie," Sherlock said. "Hurting yourselves or others isn't going to bring him back, though."

"I know, but…"

"The man who killed him has already been poisoned half to death – who knows if he'll ever recover? He's suffering now, that's for sure, whether he lives or dies. Is there any good, then, in harming anyone else, including yourselves?"

"I don't know…" Hulme wailed.

Then a voice that had been silent all evening made itself heard, as Nellie Samuels spoke in quietly angry, surprisingly strong tones: "Maybe you don't know, and you've always been a sweet girl, Cathy, but I know that my darling boy was murdered, and I don't care who else dies to pay for it!"

Samuels raised the Glock she had taken from the table earlier, and pointed it at Ambassador Luo.

"As an ambassador, shouldn't you be responsible for what your countrymen do?" Samuels demanded, her voice steady, but her eyes filling with tears.

Mycroft immediately positioned himself between Samuels and Ambassador Luo, and said to the older woman: "Ms Samuels, I believe Henry was a perfect son to you, but representative of his country or not, Ambassador Luo is truly innocent in this matter. Please don't harm an innocent man."

"Oh, Nellie!" Hulme was crying now, her hand holding the revolver lowering itself weakly so the firearm now pointed harmlessly away from the ambassador.

Sherlock seized the chance to carefully approach Hulme. He spoke softly to her, took her hand and eased the Smith & Wesson out of her fingers, then led her to the PADP officers waiting by the door. Mycroft hoped against hope that Sherlock would accompany Hulme right out of the building, but no, his brother turned back once Hulme was taken care of, and came to stand in front of him.

"Sherlock, please," Mycroft said under his breath. "I can handle this. Go."

"No."

"Sherlock…"

"I'm staying. Nellie, if you want to shoot the ambassador, you'll have to go through Mycroft. And if you want to shoot Mycroft, you'll have to go through me. Please, Nellie. Please don't."

"Then I'll just break up one of those vases Cathy arranged to have brought in here, so you'll all suffer as I've suffered, shall I?" she threatened furiously.

"Ms Samuels, please don't take innocent lives," Mycroft said calmly, stepping up alongside Sherlock. "I know you're ill, and you feel that it doesn't matter what else happens in the world now that Henry is gone, but please don't take innocent people with you. Ambassador Luo and Sherlock never did a thing against Henry or you."

"I'm so _angry_!" she yelled in frustation. "I don't – I don't want… _I hate everything_!"

To Mycroft's horror, Samuels swung the pistol in an arc to her right, aiming at one of the flower arrangements on the table nearest her. But she was unfamiliar with firearms, and Mycroft could see that her finger was a shade too high on the trigger to fully depress the safety lever, which meant there was a chance the Glock might not fire. Sherlock must have spotted the same thing – and he was quicker than Mycroft, because he'd sprung at Samuels in an instant and forced her arm downwards and away from any of the vases. Mycroft pried her finger off the trigger and wrested the pistol out of her grip.

Samuels began howling in sorrow and rage, but Sherlock held on to her, put his arms around her until she stopped struggling and simply broke down crying, then he ushered her out of the room, followed closely by Mycroft and Ambassador Luo.

"罗大使, 您没事吧?" Mycroft asked the ambassador.

"没事, 没事. 谢谢你, Mycroft," Luo Qifan replied with a thankful smile as they hurried away from the dining room.

The police team in the passageway was in full hazmat suits. Anthea and the Yard would naturally have set up all precautionary measures the moment toxic chemicals or explosives were indicated to be involved. _Of course Sherlock refused to don protective gear,_ Mycroft thought with a shudder when he considered what could have happened to his brother.

"Seal off this whole passageway to everyone except bomb disposal and hazmat, and no one enters any part of the hotel without protective gear," Mycroft reminded the waiting officers. "Guard against possible anthrax exposure. We also still do not know if an external party could remotely trigger explosives that may be concealed inside the green vases with the red dahlias."

"Yes, sir," they replied, before updating their teams.

As none of the vases had broken, it was unlikely that anyone had been exposed to whatever toxins were in them. But to be safe, the police had set up a large tent on the tarmac in cordoned-off Stratton Street, and every person who had been in the dining room was directed in there to be checked for exposure to poisons – they might have to remain there for hours, as it would take time for the swabs from clothes, skin and hair to be processed; it promised to be an uncomfortable night for all.

Sherlock grabbed a blanket from one of the emergency response personnel and wrapped it around Mycroft's shoulders as they stepped out into the cold night air and headed towards the tent. But the phone Mycroft had rung Anthea with buzzed then, and Mycroft answered to hear her say: "Sir, your Jaguar is ten metres from the tent. I've arranged for it to be yours and Sherlock's temporary quarantine space, so you can at least have some privacy. Louis should be approaching you now to lead you there."

"Thank you, Anthea," he said, with feeling. "Thank you for all that you and the others have done tonight."

"Sir, Sherlock was very upset in the Bentley this evening. He was really worried about you."

"I understand. Thank you."

A figure he could barely make out as one of his MI5 team stepped up to them in a full hazmat suit, handed him the car key, and led him and Sherlock to his Jaguar – sans driver, of course, until they were pronounced uncontaminated. They climbed into the back seat, closed and locked all the doors, and prepared to wait for the hazmat officers and doctors.

"Are you all right?" Sherlock asked him the moment they were alone, the dark windows of the car keeping them from everyone's view.

"I'm not hurt at all, Sherlock," he assured him. "But when you went in there, I was so afraid you would be hurt. Please don't do such a thing again. I _wouldn't_ have been able to protect you if the poisons had been released. I wouldn't have been able to keep you _safe_ …"

"No, Mycroft," Sherlock said, shaking his head. "I'd do it a thousand times over…"

"I wouldn't have been able to _protect_ you!" Mycroft repeated.

"Mycroft, no – _I_ was there to protect _you_ , do you understand?" Sherlock insisted, his voice taking on a distressed edge as he leaned into Mycroft, then turned his body to pull him into a tight embrace, burying his face in his neck. "It doesn't always have to be your job to protect everyone at your own expense."

"The fact is, that is often a part of my job," Mycroft sighed, stroking Sherlock's back.

"It shouldn't be," Sherlock said petulantly, almost like a child, starting to tremble a little in Mycroft's arms. "I'll protect you whenever I can. I'll always want to protect you as much as I can."

"Will you?" Mycroft asked softly with a fond smile, holding Sherlock more tightly.

"Always. Don't you dare die on me, Mycroft," Sherlock whispered. "Your loss would break my heart."

* * *

 **Note:  
** The words the ambassador mouths to Mycroft in Mandarin are _"Huang Mingyi? Bu ke neng, ba?"_ (Translation: "Huang Mingyi? Surely that's not possible?")

And the exchange between the ambassador and Mycroft when the crisis is over goes:  
 _"Luo da shi, nin mei shi ba?"_ ("Ambassador Luo, are you all right?")  
 _"Mei shi, mei shi. Xie xie ni,_ Mycroft." ("I'm fine, I'm fine. Thank you, Mycroft.")


	9. Care, Security

**Care, Security**

They had to take care. It wasn't a good idea to kiss. But this was something they both knew without having to discuss it, or needing it to be at the forefront of their minds. It was simply obvious that with medical teams trotting around swabbing and testing everyone who'd been in the dining room, it was asking for trouble to permit the existence of a sample that could reveal to someone capable of Moriarty-level snooping that traces of their saliva had been in each other's mouths. Or anywhere lower down on their bodies.

Sexual intimacy was impossible, but strangely, this wove a deeply intimate cocoon around them as Mycroft's soul processed what it meant that Sherlock had echoed his own words to him from the Christmas before last. _"Your loss would break my heart"_ – a statement he had made at a time when he had never dreamt that Sherlock would ever learn the full range of emotion and desire that lay behind his words.

But now, his brother snuggled against him and refused to raise his head from Mycroft's chest. The more petulant equivalent, perhaps, of Mycroft keeping his back to him as he'd made his declaration two years ago, to hide his eyes and face from him. So he let him be for a good 22 minutes, until he saw the medical teams approaching.

The masks came down over their faces as they drew apart and unlocked the doors to let the officers and doctors swab them and check for immediate danger signs or symptoms of poisoning. They were then given four bottles of drinking water and left alone again – probably for several hours – while the labs ran the toxicology tests.

"Can you go home after this?" Sherlock asked, dropping his mask and curling into his body when the car doors were closed and locked once more.

"No," he answered, snaking an arm round Sherlock's waist. "My teams are waiting to debrief me, then I'll report to the Cabinet, and call Ambassador Luo. We have an understanding that the Chinese side will take care of Wu Guangrong and anyone else from the embassy they find to be involved, but MI6 will begin its operations against Eskov at once. I'm not likely to see the inside of my house for three days."

"I hate it that you're always overworked." Sherlock sounded as if he was pouting.

"Nonsense," Mycroft scoffed affectionately. "You love it that I'm always overworked. It keeps me out of your hair."

"Well, I don't like it any more. Can I stay by your side until you're done?"

"For three days? In the JIO ops room at Whitehall?" Mycroft asked incredulously. "You'd be climbing the deathly dull, drab walls in there and driving _me_ insane with your complaints."

"Then can I wait in your house?"

"You can, although I fear you'd go just as mad of boredom in there by yourself," Mycroft laughed, kissing the top of his head. "Since you've already stolen or read half my books."

"Call me when you're done, then, and I'll meet you there. I want to be with you."

"Do you? You're not just overreacting to almost losing me to an explosive anthrax assault?"

"It's not funny."

"I'm sorry," Mycroft apologised, kissing the top of his head again.

It was all very chaste here in the back seat of the car, and very endearing, he thought, with Sherlock nestled against him almost like he had when he'd been very small and was always looking for a cuddle from his elder brother.

"I'm not overreacting," Sherlock insisted, murmuring into Mycroft's chest. "I want to be with you."

"I'll give you my spare set of keys, how about that?" Mycroft coaxed him into agreement. "When I'm ready to go home, or any time before or after that, you can let yourself in."

"Without breaking in."

"Without breaking in."

Sherlock reluctantly released Mycroft for a few moments to let him stretch his body and one arm over to the front of the car and tap a passcode into the locked compartment beneath the dashboard, from where he retrieved one of his spare sets of house keys.

"You've broken in so often, I wonder if you remember that you have to use these in tandem with a code. The current one is…"

"I know what the current code is."

Mycroft raised an eyebrow. "Do I want to know how you know it?"

"No," Sherlock said childishly, pocketing the keys before diving into Mycroft's arms again and burying his face in his chest.

"Sometimes, I think you really never did grow up," he said with genuine wonder, stroking Sherlock's curly hair.

"I didn't. Or maybe I regressed. Whatever," he shrugged against Mycroft's torso. "Mummy was totally wrong, in any case, when she asked _me_ what to do about Eurus because I was the grown-up. Stuff and nonsense. I was _never_ the grown-up. She only said so to needle you because she thought in the heat of her anger that your politics and intelligence work and security worries and diplomacy were silly games. But they're silly only when they're played by goldfish – they're deadly serious when you're the one looming over the chessboard. I've always been the brat messing things up for you. She was so wrong about you."

"All right, shush," Mycroft whispered. "Don't get worked up over Mummy again. It's fine. You and I weren't very nice to each other at different times of our lives, but we're here, and we're both alive and in one piece, so I think we, and Mummy and Daddy, all got the most crucial parts right. It's worked out, somehow."

He could feel Sherlock chewing his bottom lip against his shirt front – perhaps biting down against his urge to dispute the advice not to get worked up over Mummy, or to express that he too was glad it had worked out. But in the end, he settled for saying nothing, only dragging his head, catlike, over the front of Mycroft's shirt and dinner jacket up to his shoulder, then burying his face in the side of his neck. The tip of his nose felt cold against Mycroft's skin, but the rest of his face was warm, as were the puffs of breath issuing from between his lips.

"You should take a nap before you get into your three-day op," Sherlock said sensibly, lifting a hand to rub soothing circles over Mycroft's forehead and temples.

"Now, who says you're _not_ the grown-up?" Mycroft smirked, closing his eyes as Sherlock's fingers did their magic on his stress levels.

"I'll be a brat if I want to," Sherlock murmured levelly, the low timbre of his voice calming Mycroft immeasurably.

"Sherlock."

"Hmm?"

"You know that things don't have to be good between us only as lovers, don't you? Right here and now, we're not doing so very much more than any other pair of brothers might, and it's still good. So… I want to say that… if you don't want what we recently became, it won't change the welcome aspects of what we are now. I'd be happy with whatever makes you happy."

"Be quiet," Sherlock said softly. "Your mind's too noisy again. I don't just want to be one thing to you, Mycroft."

"Oh?"

"I want what you want. This is the first stage of my life at which I can say that honestly, and consciously mean it from every angle, in all its permutations."

Mycroft started to open his eyes, but Sherlock dropped the palm of his hand over his eyelids to keep them closed.

"Promise me you'll do everything you can not to die on me, and I'll promise you the same for myself. If we pull it off, I'll have plenty of time to show you that I mean what I say," Sherlock told him. "We could talk till the cows come home, but we're both too bloody good at manipulating others and ourselves with words, so I can see why you'd wonder if I'm just talking myself into it. But I'm not, I promise you. I'm in this with you, and I want _everything_ you want for us."

Mycroft's breath hitched, but he smoothed it again, and forced his breathing and heart rate to slow. "All right," he acquiesced.

Perhaps he was evading the confrontation that he felt he needed to have with Sherlock, but certain things could neither be uncovered nor improved by persistent digging. Perhaps he should stop feeling that he had to interfere in or interrogate the shifts of the strange new landscape he and Sherlock were weaving around themselves, and just explore it as it grew. This was unfamiliar territory. In his vast experience, things tended to go wrong when he didn't micromanage them. But this time, Sherlock was his partner, not his adversary, in nurturing this unusual garden twining and branching out over and about them, and that alone might make a brave new world of difference.

Knowing he would indeed need some rest before the operation ahead, he sank into a middling depth of sleep, the blanket Sherlock had grabbed from the medical team keeping his knees warm, while Sherlock's arms, wrapped around him, warded off the autumn-night chill in the unheated car.

By his pocket watch, it was two hours later when Sherlock woke him with a warm brush of his lips under his left ear, and a whisper: "You can wake up now. Anthea's texted to say they've done the initial processing with a quick version of the test just for us, and they're reasonably sure we're not going to kill half the population by scattering anthrax spores everywhere."

"Mm." Mycroft's mouth felt dry and stale.

"Have some water," Sherlock said, opening one of the bottles that the medical team had left.

"Thanks," he said, after a few mouthfuls had revitalised him and his breath.

"She's coming over to trade places with me. You're both off to Whitehall at once with your usual driver, and the Bentley will take John and me back to Baker Street."

"Efficient as always, that girl," Mycroft commented.

"Can't I stay with you while you go through this?"

"Go home and spend some regular time with John, Rosamund and Mrs Hudson," Mycroft said to him, stroking his cheek. "After that, if you like, you can come to me with a clear conscience that you haven't neglected your work or your friends."

"Okay. Just don't think I'll forget all about you while we're apart. I'll never forget all about you again."

"We'll see," Mycroft said archly. "By tomorrow it'll have escaped you that you even have an older brother."

Sherlock stuck his tongue out at him, but darted in for a quick peck on the cheek just as Anthea came within two feet of the car, the darkened windows the only thing keeping them from being seen by her. He opened the door and got out, and Mycroft saw him give Anthea a "Take care of Mycroft" look, which she responded to with her own "You know I always do" look. Mycroft rolled his eyes and clucked in irritation, but watched with a softer gaze as Sherlock strode off in the direction of the Bentley, disappearing from view round one of the medical tents before the Jaguar pulled away from the scene.

Once he and Anthea reached Whitehall and descended into the ops room in the JIO office, Mycroft switched to kill-and-destroy work mode and dismissed all sentiment by convincing himself that Sherlock would come to his senses by daybreak and run screaming from him – after getting in a swat about his massive weight, of course.

By the time 27 hours had passed since Mycroft had had any sleep beyond a 20-minute catnap, the first text from Sherlock arrived, followed two hours later by another. The surreal feeling of reading those messages prompted Mycroft to consider if it might not be unreasonable to assume he was hallucinating. However, knowing that his hallucinations never began before the 72-hour sleep-deprivation mark, he had to accept that the messages were real. Probably. Especially when a third arrived via John, another couple of hours after the last.

At 05:03:  
 **Sherlock  
** _In Finsbury Park on a case. Dead turtle, dismembered parrot. Don't worry, not moving around too evasively to lose the usual minder you have on my tail._

At 07:17:  
 **Sherlock  
** _Now at Highgate for one of the parrot's feet. Old grave, new body. Had to dash, but not so fast your man couldn't keep up._

At 09:08:  
 **John Watson  
** _Sherlock wants me to tell you he's deep underground. Literally. But you're not to be concerned unless he doesn't surface after three hours. I'll update you. He says he doesn't want you to worry when you have so many other things on your mind. Which, frankly, is more than a tad strange. Should I be worried about him not wanting to worry you?_

Deep into the operation to strike several concurrent blows against Anatoly Eskov by going after his associates, a mere handful of hours after Mycroft had thoroughly debriefed the Cabinet about what had happened at The May Fair, following debriefings he'd received from a string of Home Office units, going through a series of dull phone calls to various diplomats, and having to assure a sincerely solicitous Lady Smallwood that he was truly unharmed and in good health, he had the peculiar experience of _not_ needing to worry about Sherlock's whereabouts. Because, wonder of wonders, his impossible brother was _voluntarily keeping him updated_.

However, at the 48-hour mark of no sleep beyond catnaps and two minutes of unconsciousness on his feet while showering in the bathroom near the ops room, he did start to think he might be seeing and hearing things. Because Anthea sounded nervous.

Anthea _never_ sounded nervous.

Yet, as she answered a call and stared at her laptop screen with a disbelieving expression on her face, she made the following illuminating vocalisation with unmistakably tremulous uncertainty: "Er… sir…?"

An "Er… sir?" coming from Anthea was never a good thing. Never.

"What is it? _What?_ " he asked anxiously, gliding round her desk to see what terrifying image she was staring at.

The sight of which gave him a certain degree of instant comprehension as to why she had produced that hesitant utterance, while not genuinely offering any true illumination at all.

It was a security-cam screengrab of Sherlock. A security-cam screengrab of Sherlock cheekily smiling – _smiling_ – straight into the camera, holding his hands up with his fingers forming _a cheesy heart shape_. A screengrab from right outside the Whitehall building their ops room was in, recorded ten minutes ago. And Anthea was now saying to someone over the phone: "All right, yes, bring it in."

"Bring what in?" Mycroft asked in a daze, still staring at the picture of his brother's incongruously cheerful face.

"Cake and chocolate."

" _What?_ "

"For you, and me, and the team. To keep us going. Apparently." Anthea frowned, evidently still processing the reality of the situation. "Sherlock rang to say he'd handed it directly to Lawrence, so there's no fear of sabotage or contamination, and Lawrence says he's bringing it in now."

Within ten minutes, Mycroft's regular driver entered bearing Sherlock's gifts of a large coconut-and-chocolate-meringue cake from Ottolenghi's, and 15 chunky bars of what promised to be pistachio praline-filled dark chocolate from a French chocolatier, along with a card that simply stated in Sherlock's handwriting: _Not drugged. Promise._

Mycroft whipped out his phone at once.

 **M  
** _Are you trying to kill me?_

 **Sherlock  
** _I swear I haven't drugged the cake and choc._

 **M  
** _That's not what I meant!_

 **Sherlock  
** _Oh. No, I'd never try to kill you. Just trying to feed you. You need some sugar in you. And probably sleep. But sugar first._

 **M  
** _My waistline will never recover._

 **Sherlock  
** _Don't be ridiculous, Mycroft. You're much too thin. We need to fatten you up a bit. Seriously._

Now he knew he _had_ to have slipped into a parallel universe. Or that Sherlock had been body-snatched. Or that he was merely hallucinating well before his 72-hour limit.

"Oh my god," Anthea groaned.

"Now what?" Mycroft breathed, almost fearfully, looking up from his phone screen.

"Eat this."

"You ate that without having it sent for testing?" Mycroft stared at Anthea in disbelief.

"He says it's not drugged."

"And you believe him?"

"I do, sir," she stated firmly. "I actually _do_ believe him. Besides, for a taste of chocolate this good at a dire time like this, I'd die happy."

With a small plastic knife that Sherlock had thoughtfully provided for the chunks of chocolate, Anthea cut Mycroft a one-centimetre-thick strip off the bar she'd unwrapped. He slipped the dark, glossy piece with its bright pistachio-green centre into his mouth, and promptly went weak at the knees.

"Oh my god," he gasped.

The dark chocolate was the perfect encasement for the rich, creamy praline in which whole pistachios nestled. Anthea was already Googling fast in between sending out confirmations of orders that were telling people to kill other people.

"Pralus is selling it at the Salon du Chocolat event at the Olympia," she said, transparently mulling the idea of sending some MI6 lackey out for more. "It might be available at a few chocolatiers here after the event if anyone shows interest in stocking it, but otherwise we'd have to get it from France."

 **Sherlock  
** _I know you like that cake, but I think you'll like the chocolate even better. I've left a few bars on your kitchen counter at home, all for you. So don't get into a spat with Anthea over the last fragments of it._

Mycroft's already melting heart melted further.

 **Sherlock  
** _Oh, and by the way, I've already called Mummy to apologise for being rude to her. She says she's sorry for being unfair to you too and sends you lots of love. Also, our infernal parents have tickets to Mamma Mia! at the Novello Theatre next week, horrors. I've promised I'll go with them, so you don't have to._

For once, Sherlock was behaving like a considerate, responsible adult without being strong-armed into it. And he was offering to tolerate almost three hours of unbearably tacky Abba numbers just so that his elder brother wouldn't have to suffer through yet another ghastly, lowbrow West End musical with their parents. _And_ he'd delivered cake and a divine variety of chocolate while Mycroft was drowning in work.

All of which, Mycroft suddenly realised – as far as _public_ gestures could go between them – was figuratively and literally the sweetest possible declaration of "I love you" that could come from someone as generally obnoxious, manipulative, thoughtless, self-absorbed and impatient as Sherlock.

For the first time in his career, Mycroft found himself in the alarming position of very nearly losing his composure in front of Anthea, and having to lean on her desk to steady his breathing before he did anything irredeemable like bursting into tears.

Without a word, and before anyone else could notice, she discreetly took his left elbow and steered him back into his own small office off the ops room, shut the door behind them, and said firmly: "Sir, you are going to lie down on this sofa and get some proper rest."

"Anthea, it's nothing," he muttered, pressing his right hand over his eyes. "It's just the stress of–"

"Sir, I had six hours of sleep last night. You haven't had anything worth describing as sleep for 48 hours."

"I'm always fine for stretches of 72 hours–"

"Sir, the human body is not a machine!" she snapped.

"Sherlock would disagree with that," he mumbled, fighting the urge to giggle hysterically and cry at the same time.

"Sherlock disagrees with _many_ things, sir, and we're not obliged to agree with him – except where his choice of chocolate and cake are concerned," she said begrudgingly. "Now, lie down. I'll cut you a large slice of cake and a few more pieces of chocolate and I'll come back in quietly to leave them here on a paper plate for you, so you can have them when you wake up. But you are to _really_ rest before that. I won't wake you for anything short of a bomb going off in Windsor Castle. I'd rather send you home to sleep, but we do need you here when our assets start moving in on Eskov's pieces of property in Moscow, Beijing and Belgrade."

"And I'm perfectly–"

"That won't happen for at least three hours yet, so sleep _now_ ," she talked right over him, taking his phone from him and switching it to silent mode. "I'll tell Sherlock, Dr Watson and DI Lestrade to contact me in an emergency."

Mycroft sighed in resignation, lay down, closed his eyes, and heard Anthea switching off all the lights in the room except the desk lamp. She stepped in quietly five minutes later to leave the promised slice of cake and chocolate on his desk, then she closed the door, and he was alone.

This latest disorientating shift had begun, hadn't it, from the moment Sherlock had stepped into that dining room with the aim of saving him? In a role-reversal between them, his brother had walked in there playing a part like the grey-eyed deity Homer had repeatedly described the goddess Athena to be, as she had taken on one disguise after another to bring Odysseus home after ten years of war in Troy, and ten more years lost to mishaps and delays at sea.

The grey-eyed one, assuming the forms of old warriors, a young man, a little girl, a tiny swallow – anything that would help Odysseus make his way back to Ithaka, give encouragement to the loyal Penelope waiting for her husband, and lend courage to their son Telemakhos, whom Odysseus had not set eyes on since he was an infant.

Like Athena, Sherlock had entered in one of his many guises, for Mycroft's sake. Then later, in the Jaguar, when he had dropped all his masks and clung to Mycroft like a kindergartener, petulantly insisting that it shouldn't always be his job to sacrifice himself for others, Mycroft had felt he was coming home at last after 20 years adrift. Sherlock had given him the permission of safe passage, going beyond even all the roles the goddess had played for Odysseus' sake. He was the deity who was smoothing Mycroft's journey now, as well as the child Mycroft thought he had lost to a hostile adulthood so long ago, and the faithful Penelope whose love he had yearned for even when nymphs and other goddesses had embraced him as their lover.

Overwhelming as the idea was, Mycroft cautiously explored what Sherlock was promising to be by caring for him, and weighed the idea that perhaps, just perhaps – even beyond the far-reaching hopes of dreams and wishes – he could be all things to Mycroft.

* * *

Security. Here, in the safety of the lab at St Bart's, he and John and Molly could talk freely, and he listened with contentment as Molly rambled on after they had shared with her what details they were allowed to of the case: "…so it's not like Dr Rama really had any other information from talking to Henry Carter's mother and girlfriend – or friend, or whoever she was supposed to be."

"No, I think what Dr Ramachandran reported about the angry things Hulme and Samuels said, and the threats of personal harm they made against Carter's killer, will be of use to Lestrade when he's putting the evidence together," Sherlock said, glancing up briefly from the microscope to give Molly a little smile. "Thanks, Molly. What you told us over the phone two evenings ago was really helpful."

Molly beamed at him and added: "Once this whole thing is out in the open, and you're able to give me more details, fill me in, won't you? It's always nice to know the facts and the real people behind the news reports."

"Of course," he promised.

He had learnt the vital lesson from once being tricked by Irene Adler that even innocuous little things could add up to huge revelations for people who were working against them. Molly would never harm them, but she might inadvertently let something slip, which could be used by somebody else. With Mycroft in the end stages of drawing his net tighter around Anatoly Eskov, it was best to keep as much under wraps as possible, until it was all over.

"What _are_ you looking at today, anyway?" she asked, peering at the slide he had under the microscope.

"Exactly what I thought they were," he said smugly. "Moth wing scales."

"From the cemetery," John chipped in cryptically.

"Where the parrot's foot was," Sherlock smiled.

"Which meant that the turtle was definitely murdered," John stated.

"Oh, definitely."

"Which, of course, means that the son of the turtle's owner is the one who's stolen all her diamond jewellery."

"And dismembered the parrot."

"Because it squealed."

"Or squawked, to be more precise."

"And because he likes torturing moths."

"Oh, yes."

Molly looked between the two of them as if she were a spectator at a ping-pong match, then shook her head before returning to her own work of testing samples from a body that had come in last night and needed urgent processing because it wouldn't hold together much longer – not after having spent the last three weeks soaking in bathwater before being discovered.

"I hope your brother's all right after all that excitement," Molly murmured, concentrating on adding a catalyst to a flask.

"He's fine," Sherlock murmured back, peering at his next slide, which confirmed that it was definitely _tiliacea citrago_. Not out of the ordinary, then, so the son wasn't likely to be getting his moths from some breeder of obscure species. Probably just netting them out of the air.

"Eh? You said last night that Mycroft was overworked," John pointed out.

"Overworked is a normal state for Mycroft," Sherlock grumbled. "Despite his natural preference for being lazy."

"I've never known Mr Holmes to be lazy, honestly," Molly said earnestly. "He's always moving mountains to keep _you_ safe."

"I know," Sherlock murmured awkwardly. "I'll stay with him for a couple of days when he's done with this case, to make sure he doesn't, you know, slip into a coma or something."

"It's a nice thought, but are you sure it's a good idea?" John asked.

"Why wouldn't it be?" Sherlock asked.

"Because things have been good between the two of you of late," John said logically. "And being in each other's hair is only going to screw it all up again. I really don't want to get a call from Greg two days later informing me that you and Mycroft have murdered each other in a temper."

"Well, either it works, or it doesn't. Might as well find out."

"Maybe I'd be slightly more worried if it turns out that the two of you _can_ get along at close quarters after all," John remarked, lightly knitting his brows.

"Why's that?" Sherlock asked.

"Because what's saved you both on more than one occasion has been the assumption of your enemies that you detest Mycroft," John said. "Moriarty didn't even try putting a sniper on Mycroft that time, and I'm guessing it wasn't only because Mycroft would never have been an easy target, but mainly because he didn't think you'd care if your brother lived or died. And Eurus counted on you choosing to kill Mycroft, because she was sure that you didn't care about him. You flummoxed her by opting not to. If you get along great now, that's one less thing keeping you from the big bad sharks we don't know about yet that are lurking, watching you from the deep."

"I'll try not to be too publicly lovey-dovey with him, how about that?" Sherlock grinned.

"Sherlock, this isn't a joke."

"I know," he replied more seriously, feeling slightly chastened.

"And along exactly the same lines, it was precisely because Moriarty didn't know how much you cared for Molly either that he didn't put a sniper on _her_ , and that really saved your skinny arse," John drove home the point, nodding at Molly, whose cheeks reddened.

"I know," Sherlock repeated with a sigh. "Which is why, as I said, I won't get too lovey-dovey with Mycroft in public."

"What really made it better between you two, anyway?" John asked, curiously. "I know Sherrinford changed things, but you and Mycroft were still pretty much going on like normal for weeks after that, minus the very ugliest of the spats, of course."

"Sherrinford _did_ change everything," Sherlock said, thinking of how to tell the truth without telling the truth. "But we were still… working out… how to behave better with each other without having to make the process agonising."

"Why would it be agonising?" Molly asked innocently.

"Because everything Mycroft and I put each other through is some bizarre variation of hell," Sherlock muttered, before hitting on a way to explain it reasonably. He went on: "John, remember that day I told you Mycroft had said in his text that I should make an honest man of you, and you said you'd rather snog Mrs Hudson, but just a couple of weeks later, you were suggesting that you and I should come to some sort of arrangement?"

"You did _what_?" Molly gasped at John, eyes wide, almost fumbling her flask.

"Sorry, Molly. There was a damn good practical reason for it, but never mind, it's not on the table now," John grimaced, before turning back to Sherlock to say: "Well, yeah, I know I said what I said, then did what I did later, but I hadn't fully worked us out in my head when he texted you, so I just threw out whatever wouldn't lead to some painful, involved discussion between us when neither of us was ready for it."

"That's rather like what happened between me and Mycroft. Things had changed, but we just went on throwing out, in a reflex, whatever pointed to the status quo between us just so it wouldn't lead to some painful, involved discussion that neither of us was ready for. But we sort of became ready for that painful discussion at some stage, and that was how things got… better?"

"I can kind of see that, but I also kind of can't," John said, shaking his head, and Molly nodded in agreement.

"Well, it's the best I can do," Sherlock grumbled.

His phone chimed, and he glanced at the incoming message. At once, he drew back from the microscope, put his slides away, and picked up his coat, saying: "John, you'll have to be the one to tell Mrs Clarke where her diamonds are – deep inside her son's moth torture chamber. In other words, in one of the secret gaps he knows about somewhere in the graves at Highgate Cemetery. Better bring the police with you – he might not stop at dismembering animals."

"Where're _you_ off to?" John queried.

"Mycroft's," he answered over his shoulder. "He should be done by this evening. I'm going to get him a takeaway so he doesn't starve."

As he left the lab, Sherlock could just make out John's baffled murmur to Molly: "Since when has he ever thought that Mycroft should be allowed to eat _anything_?"

Acknowledging the truth of John's remark as he exited the building, Sherlock felt a little angry with himself. He and Mycroft had always had a similar constitution: They could both go without sleep and food for days with little discernible effect. And all along, because he'd never cared much for his own body, he had high-handedly decided that Mycroft shouldn't care for his either. He'd tormented his brother for giving himself meals, and treats, and rest, because, surely, it was _understood_ that the two of them didn't _need_ such things.

But he didn't like this ridiculous understanding any more. He had found it startling to notice how fragile Mycroft had been after Sherrinford, how brittle he'd seemed after Mummy had been hard on him, and how tired his body was. He now also hated how punishingly disciplined he was about his food. Sherlock knew it was hypocritical to care about these things now on Mycroft's behalf while still brushing off friends' concerns about his own health and well-being, but he would wrap his head around the stupid contradiction later. For the present, he could _see_ the need for Mycroft to be well, and happy, and that would have to do.

John had often commented on Sherlock's poor practical knowledge of how normal humans functioned, and the accusation was not an unjust one. However, he'd been trying to pick things up little by little, and he'd paid attention to Rosie's needs, and absorbed tiny details from John and Mrs Hudson about… well, normal stuff.

He tried to put those bits of information to use now as he considered what Mycroft would like for dinner. Not that Mycroft was _normal_. But if he was trying to take care of him, what would be best? Well, he wouldn't have eaten properly the last three days, that was for sure. Anthea would have tried to give him reasonably nutritious sandwiches or anything else she thought he'd be willing to bite into while his mind was running in full work mode, but chances were good he'd have nibbled on the greens and left half the bread and meat uneaten. So, even though Sherlock knew he enjoyed Northern Indian food, which might be good for whetting his appetite, he had better not have anything excessively spicy before his stomach readapted to normal meals.

A saag paneer, then – he'd like the spinach and cubes of mild cheese, and there was no curry or chilli in that. A chicken tandoori too. Some naan – maybe half of them plain, and half with garlic, which he did appreciate. Sherlock hailed a cab and headed for St James's, where he ordered a takeaway of the items he'd decided on from a Northern Indian eatery there. When the packs of food were handed to him, he walked over to Mycroft's place, let himself in, and hoped he'd timed it well enough for his brother to be home soon. Because he still didn't trust himself to reheat real food properly in the microwave or on the stovetop without burning it to an intriguing but inedible charcoal crisp.

It took slightly longer than he'd anticipated, and the food had cooled somewhat – but not too much – before he heard the sounds of the door opening and went downstairs to the foyer.

Mycroft looked tired. And hungry. And rather impossibly handsome, not a hair out of place, black pinstriped three-piece suit perfectly uncreased beneath the black overcoat, skimming lightly over the lean lines of his body, a dark contrast against the pallor of his face, the faint hollows in his cheeks setting off the delicate bones, which had always been finer in structure and more fragile-looking than Sherlock's.

And Sherlock's breath caught. Because it had been a damned long time since he'd instinctively found Mycroft _really, actually bloody attractive_. How long had it been? He must have been fifteen or so when that last lightning strike of physical attraction to his brother had dashed through his psyche and seared him. After that, for years, it had gone missing. Even on the night they'd first made love here in this very house, and in the bunker office, he'd known that he _wanted_ Mycroft, that he _cared_ about him, that he wanted to _be with_ him, but this was different – very old, and also very new – this silly, heady, dizzy realisation that Mycroft was _gorgeous_.

"Hello," Mycroft said, looking quizzically at him, frozen on the stairs.

"Hi," Sherlock managed to say, from a throat that had gone dry.

Mycroft's eyes narrowed. "What have you done?"

"Hmm?" he asked, puzzled. "I haven't done anything."

"Then why do you look nervous?"

"Do I? I haven't done anything, really. I just hope you like saag paneer and tandoori chicken. I got a takeaway for your dinner. I'm sure you haven't had any real food in days."

"I love saag paneer," Mycroft smiled as Sherlock made it down the last of the stairs and walked over to him while he removed his coat. "But that can't be why you're nervous."

"I didn't want to get anything too spicy for you if you hadn't eaten properly in days," Sherlock told him. "I wanted to get it right."

"That's why you're looking this uncertain? You think I'd complain about what you've chosen for my dinner?" Mycroft asked, cupping the right side of Sherlock's face with his hand and running his thumb over his cheekbone.

"I just wanted to make sure I got something you would actually eat," Sherlock whispered, his voice seeming to dry up again.

Mycroft looked into his eyes and saw what he saw there, and then his own eyes widened, and he said: "Oh."

Sherlock broke the eye-contact, feeling hot in the face, glancing down a few inches to his neck, where it was his own turn to go: "Oh, you're wearing the scarf."

"Of course I am," Mycroft smiled a little shyly as he unwound the said scarf. "I wear it more often than I'd expected to when you gave it to me. I wore it every day that I was away on that two-week trip. And I locked it in the glove compartment of the car on the evening of the ambassador's dinner because I knew I would have to leave my coat in the cloakroom, and I didn't want to risk losing the scarf. I always think of you when I wear it. But then I think that I always think of you even when I'm not wearing it."

Mycroft leaned in for a kiss, which Sherlock gladly gave, though he wished his heart would stop pounding like this, because it was making him even more nervous and trembly, and he wanted to give Mycroft a _good_ kiss…

"Thank you for the cake, and the wonderful chocolate, and for keeping me updated about your activities," Mycroft whispered against his lips. "It meant a great deal to me."

"I really, really wanted you not to have to worry about me," he whispered back. "You've spent too much of your life doing that, and I need to stop putting you through that. And I really, really need to feed you up, because you've become so thin it hurts my bones just to see it."

"Are you quite sure you haven't been body-snatched by aliens I will now be obliged to wage war on to make them switch you back? Your usual brain and personality seem to have vanished into the far reaches of space," Mycroft remarked fondly, lips now brushing Sherlock's jaw.

"If being my usual self means being horrid to you I'd rather be brain-switched by aliens," Sherlock said frankly.

"Do you really want to fatten me up now? Are you sure?" Mycroft asked doubtfully.

"Mm-hmm. As long as you're healthy and happy, everything else is fine," Sherlock insisted. "You need more meat on your bones."

"Maybe you're just getting me ready to be shoved into some witch's cauldron."

"I have no doubt you'd taste utterly delicious, but I prefer you alive, uncooked and in one piece, if you please," Sherlock said. "We'll hold out bones for blind old witches to feel so they won't know if you get plump, and we'll eat up their houses of cake and sweets when we've killed them, and we'll live happily ever after."

"A fairy-tale ending."

"Fairy-tale endings don't include perishing of hunger, so come and have something to eat before you drop," Sherlock insisted, taking Mycroft by the hand and leading him upstairs to the table in the drawing room, where they sat close to each other on either side of one corner of the table, and he made Mycroft tuck into as much saag paneer and tandoori chicken and naan as he could eat, feeding him several bites by hand, as Mycroft made sure that Sherlock, too, mopped up his fair share.

Then they cleared the table and headed down into the kitchen, where they binned what could not be recycled, and washed the rest.

Sherlock stood behind Mycroft at the sink and slipped his arms around him, unable to suppress the frisson of attraction and nervousness and what felt like absurd quantities of affection, and he knew Mycroft wouldn't have missed a single shiver against his back.

"Thank you for looking after me, and looking out for me," Mycroft said, turning his face towards Sherlock's.

"I could just as well say that to you too," Sherlock responded, nuzzling him and not minding all the aromas of food on their breath and the scent of dishwashing liquid and hot water from the sink, because he could smell the warmth of Mycroft's skin and the seductiveness of his cologne, and it was making his heart speed up again.

He was behaving like a teenager with a crush on his brother, and Mycroft could read him like a book. He could have taken so much revenge for all the suffering he'd endured, for the horror of Sherlock trying to sell his body to him at 17, for simply not being loved back as a brother for so long. But, being forgiving towards him as always, Mycroft leaned back into his embrace and permitted everything – the nervous touches, the possessive embrace, the growing hardness Sherlock was pressing against him, the kisses.

"You're my grey-eyed goddess, aren't you?" Mycroft asked him, kindly, hopefully, gently.

"Hmm?" he questioned, surprised to be cast in the figure of the one doing the rescuing when it was Mycroft who'd always been there to save him.

"My Athena, in all her disguises, bringing me home. And my Penelope. And my Telemakhos. All of them. After so many years of war and misadventure."

"Have you been lost so very long?"

"Twenty years, I think."

"You're home at last," Sherlock's voice shook a little as he said it. "I wasn't there for you before, but I'll always be here for you now. I'll never let you go again."

* * *

 **Note:** I suppose I could just leave it here, and it would work as a final chapter. But I think I'd like a bit more of Mummy being sweet to Mycroft for a change, and our boys in bed, and being good to each other. Maybe getting up to much more than they should in bed under their parents' roof while on a visit? Should John find out about them? That could be a bit scary – for John. Maybe not? Let me know if you think I should add one last chapter, or an epilogue, or something.


	10. Restraint

**Warning:** Fluff, lemony stuff, mild and consensual bondage, and tooth-rotting terms of endearment in this chapter. Please proceed with caution if any of the aforementioned is likely to rub you the wrong way.

* * *

 **Restraint**

"Heavens, you've returned all the books – to the correct places," Mycroft noted with surprise as he surveyed his shelves in the library from this rather unusual perspective.

Beside him, Sherlock chuckled: "I had to. They were missing their friends."

They lay on their backs, side by side, on a large, fully unzipped and opened-out sleeping bag on the carpet, resting their heads on cushions anchored against the foot of one of the large bookshelves. A duvet was rolled up to one side.

"When did you bring them back?" Mycroft asked, choosing not to fuss with deductions.

"Over the last three days, in batches, while you were holed up in that office. Along with my clothes and violin, and an experiment in progress," Sherlock offered the details readily, evidently taking pity on his mental fatigue after the operation to critically cripple Anatoly Eskov.

"You had better not have put a human head into my refrigerator."

"Just a few toes in the toaster."

"Sherlock."

"Pulling your leg. Which I promise not to store in the fridge after it comes off."

"Of course you won't – you'll pack it straight off to the taxidermist's, won't you?" Mycroft asked, darkly.

Sherlock grinned. "It'd make quite a statement piece at Baker Street, it would, one of your stuffed legs."

"You can park it next to the fireplace, near your skull," Mycroft suggested dryly.

"Perfect."

A smile stole over Mycroft's face as he remarked: "This brings back memories – lying here, and just talking. Until you were six, you and I would curl up together in the library at Musgrave at least twice a day, and we'd read, and talk about anything on our minds."

"I remembered that only recently," Sherlock said. "Eurus always looked at us contemptuously and wouldn't join us."

"She despised me," Mycroft sighed. "Probably for having the temerity to exist."

"She hated how much I adored you."

"Well, whatever it was that she loathed, it was always just you and me in that cold, sprawling library, on that red carpet with the white roses."

"Wrapped in blankets we'd dragged downstairs from our rooms."

"Reading your silly pirate stories."

"And your stuffy classics."

"I missed that, after… everything went up in flames."

"We can do that all the time now."

"I'm not sure my old bones could handle lying on the floor for too long," Mycroft huffed.

"You're not _old_ ," Sherlock scoffed.

"You've been mocking my _advanced age_ for at least five years now," Mycroft pointed out mildly.

"Won't do it any more," Sherlock promised. "You're not old. Even when you do finally become decrepit after, oh, about a hundred years, I'll still want to do this with you – but with a thicker mattress to spare our _old bones_. Although some hired housekeeper will have to lug it over to the library for us so we don't put our backs out."

Mycroft laughed. "What would people make of us? A pair of ancient, curmudgeonly brothers lying on the floor, nattering about all the peculiar things we talk about?"

"I don't care what people would make of us, as long as you're with me," Sherlock said, slipping his hand into Mycroft's and turning his head to look at him.

Mycroft's pulse sped up, feeling the heat of Sherlock's gaze on his face, and the warmth of his hand. The almost-unreal sense that Sherlock was returning his feelings – in all their alarming depth – nearly gave him another moment of needing to be alone simply to absorb the truth of it. He'd done that earlier, after they'd washed their dinner utensils in the kitchen, and he'd wanted to take a shower as he gave it time to sink in.

 _"Will you be all right in there by yourself?" Sherlock had asked at the bathroom door._

 _"Of_ course _I will. Why wouldn't I be?"_

 _"Are you sure?"_

 _"I'm not going to vanish in a puff of smoke, you know," he assured._

 _"I could wash your hair for you."_

 _"I have little enough hair left on my head that I am quite certain I can manage that task very easily on my own."_

 _"I could still do it for you."_

 _"Didn't you bathe this afternoon?"_

 _"Yes."_

 _"So you're clean enough, and have no need to be in here with me."_

 _"Mycroft…"_

 _"I promise you that all I want is to shower, not engage in a euphemism for the term. I'll be out in ten minutes."_

 _"Meet you in the library in fifteen minutes?"_

 _"Yes."_

 _"I'll make us some tea."_

He'd needed a bit of time to just be quietly overwhelmed by how everything was going to change now, even if on the surface it would seem the same. Superficially, their lives would alter by the barest tweaks in their schedules and logistical arrangements, with only one more secret to hide from others. But the reality was that everything would be different.

Like the shifting of tectonic plates while all remained calm on the surface.

Sherlock seemed to have understood this after Mycroft had refused to let him into the bathroom, because he hadn't just made tea in that fifteen minutes. He'd changed into his own sleepwear of drawstring slacks and a buttoned pyjama top that didn't match, dug up an old sleeping bag from the wardrobe in the guest room, and opened it out like a thick groundsheet. He'd convinced Mycroft to sit there with him in his dressing gown and pyjamas as they sipped camomile tea from their mugs. Then they'd lain back against the cushions, talked about silly things, and he'd relaxed.

Now Sherlock's hand had stolen into his, pulse racing – he felt the rapid throb where the heels of their palms pressed together. Remarkable. He wasn't the only one; his brother too was _nervous_. He'd spent all evening trying to please Mycroft without scaring him off, and Mycroft had locked him out of the bathroom. He turned onto his side, facing Sherlock, and caressed his face with his free hand.

"I'm sorry for shutting you out of the bathroom," he said.

"We showered together just a few days ago, you know, right here in this house," Sherlock reminded him, with a trace of a pout.

"I know."

"And I'm _not_ Clytemnestra waiting to murder Agamemnon in the bath after his long years away at war," Sherlock declared.

"I know that too. I'm sorry for keeping you waiting," Mycroft said. "I suddenly felt a little overwhelmed."

Sherlock's eyes widened at this admission of vulnerability, and he shook his head at once, saying: "I wasn't asking for an apology for _keeping me waiting_. My waiting a few minutes is nothing when I'm the one who's kept you waiting all these years."

"Sherlock, you didn't keep me waiting; I always assumed that this was never supposed to happen," Mycroft sighed, running his fingers over Sherlock's right cheekbone. "Even now, a part of me thinks I should never have allowed you, when you were younger, to discover how I felt about you. Perhaps sensing my thoughts and feelings influenced yours. I can't help wondering if I _engendered_ this, if I _caused_ you to begin thinking of me as more than a brother…"

" _Mycroft_ ," Sherlock interrupted urgently, rising up on one elbow and shaking his head more sharply. " _No_ , you idiot genius. You didn't make me feel what I felt for you when I was thirteen or fourteen."

"No?"

"No one could _make_ me feel that way."

"Don't you think that someone like me would have the means to?"

"No. Not even you. You'd simply become a beautiful stranger to me, and I think it was pretty much the same for you – we'd been estranged long enough, and we'd both changed enough physically that I think we looked at each other and suddenly _wanted_. You were and are the only person in the world who's _ever_ been a match for my mind yet remains sane, unlike Moriarty and Eurus. But I was angry with the inflexible person you'd turned into, so I kept you at a distance. You're not a stranger to me any more. My reasons are now entirely the opposite – I feel what I feel for you _because_ I _know_ you."

"I hear you. But I still question if I might have unknowingly influenced you when you were an adolescent," Mycroft said. "It's overwhelming because you've meant everything to me for so long. Yet, the part of me that wants this with you is warring with that other part of me that remembers I was _there_ the day you were _born_. You are my flesh and blood, I'm much older than you, I've known you from the first day of your existence outside of Mummy's womb, I might have _affected_ you, and it's just _wrong_ for me to _want_ you like this now, that part of me is telling me…"

Sherlock dipped his head and shut Mycroft up with a kiss, after which he pulled back, gazed at him intently, and stated: "It's not wrong. You didn't make me do this. And whatever the world or the law may say, this is _our_ world, and it's right for us."

Mycroft exhaled what began as a sigh but ended like a groan as he said: "Good God, it feels as if everything now reminds me of you as a child – the way you're looking at me, arguing earnestly with me, and our being here like this really does call to mind how tiny you used to be in my arms when we were in the Musgrave library. I feel horribly like a pervert."

"You can't possibly feel like a pervert about it when I've been this great big _lout_ for at least the last sixteen years," Sherlock laughed.

"However grown-up you are, at times, I look at you and can't see past the child you used to be," Mycroft said ruefully. He still couldn't bring himself to admit that he'd stared, aghast, from the helicopter in the immediate aftermath of Sherlock's shooting Magnussen and seen only a small, frightened child in the glare of the floodlights, a lost little boy in the cross hairs of weapons built to kill. Perhaps he would never be able to bring himself to share that traumatic vision with Sherlock.

"What did you see in your mind's eye whenever you tried to brush away thoughts of me when I was a young teen?" Sherlock asked, taking a new angle that distracted Mycroft from his memories of him as a child. "Because I _know_ you'd have forbidden yourself to go too far even in your own head."

"How would you know that?" Mycroft asked, with a soft smile.

"I know what you're like," Sherlock gave a smile to match his. "Always so unforgivingly strict with yourself."

"I _couldn't_ go too far in my mind with you," Mycroft confirmed. "I kept pushing those thoughts away. It wasn't right at all because you were my brother, and it would have been far worse when you were still too young. But when you were older, my thoughts _did_ go further."

"Did they sometimes begin like this? Just lying beside me, and holding me, and kissing me?"

"Sometimes."

"Then let's begin here," Sherlock said, pressing another kiss to Mycroft's lips.

Mycroft felt him still quivering with want and the lingering nervousness he was trying to push through. It struck him how brave Sherlock was to go for what he desired even when it had become a risk for him the moment he'd had something to lose – and he'd had everything to lose once he'd fallen for Mycroft, tumbling after him into the abyss. So he kissed him back, lovingly, in their free fall… except he now had the most peculiar feeling that unlike Milton's rebellious angels plummeting from heaven for nine days straight until they smashed into the netherworld, Sherlock had hauled him out of his personal hell, dragging the entire realm of Hades into the sunlight, free-falling with him in reverse into the stratosphere.

With uncanny timing, and perhaps some clever deduction, Sherlock whispered between kisses: "You're not dragging me down with you, Mycroft. I'm taking you with me."

The dark, gravitational pull of the abyss released him, and the burden of his fears lifted. Sherlock _needed_ him now, needed to know that he wasn't going to lose him after finally catching up with him, and Mycroft told him through his lips and tongue and hands that he wasn't going anywhere. There was no pressure or rush towards a fixed destination, because they were just starting out, despite their decades of history together – a contradiction. Always contradictory, they were. No urgency. They had all the time in the world after living almost half their lives, because this was only the beginning.

"Is it all right if we do this… just this… for a while?" Sherlock asked, a bit uncertainly, when their lips drew apart briefly, in the interval from the end of one kiss to the start of another.

"I'd like that," Mycroft agreed. "I must have dreamt about this. Just holding you and kissing you, without a desperate need to do more."

"'Making out' like teenagers," Sherlock murmured, his colouring heightened with a modicum of self-consciousness, a new thing in itself – an unfamiliar look of embarrassment on that beautiful face which for so long had presented to Mycroft nothing but a veneer of arrogance, confidence, defiance, coldness, detachment, and sometimes outright hostility. Even the concern, affection and sexual interest of the last few weeks had been nothing like this.

"I never thought I would see the day when I'd confess that there's something to be said for petting like teens, but that day has arrived," Mycroft smiled, slowly running his hands down Sherlock's back, feeling the lean muscles shift under his touch.

"It's nice," Sherlock whispered, his unadorned words conveying more feeling than any witticism could, and his hands seeking out, little by little, every part of Mycroft he could reach, as if he couldn't get enough of him.

Neither of them attempted to remove a single article of clothing. Their hands stole underneath hems and inside collars to reach skin, and their lips and tongues found each other, nipping and nibbling at ears, jawlines, necks and, playfully, the tips of their noses, just exploring and feeling and tasting, not rushing each other. They charted their ticklish spots – all of Sherlock's were exactly where Mycroft remembered them, but Sherlock had to relearn his brother's. And Sherlock had never paid much detailed attention to his own body for pleasure, never bothered to register where he liked to be touched, so Mycroft figured it out for him while showing him his own preferences. Sherlock mussed up Mycroft's shower-damp hair until it betrayed some of the natural curl it had but which Mycroft always forced into neatness; and Mycroft rediscovered, right at the roots, the reddish-brown undertones that he had always known Sherlock's hair to have, but which seemed to have been entirely smothered by the dark hues that his curls had taken on as he'd grown older.

When they got drowsy after a session of fairly chastely relearning each other's bodies and tickling each other half to death, Mycroft pulled the duvet over them. They closed their eyes and dozed off, arms around each other, for about an hour, before the discomfort of the thin surfaces between them and the wood flooring woke them to stiff backs and the pinpricking sensations of blood flowing back into their limbs.

"Leave the sleeping bag," Mycroft said, coaxing the life back into his right arm, which had been under Sherlock's head. He placed their mugs on the side table – washing them would have to wait for morning.

Sherlock got to his feet after a bit of sleepy murmuring, wrapping the duvet around his body and switching off the lights. The bedrooms were one floor above the library and drawing room, so Mycroft held Sherlock's hand to lead him up the stairs in the semi-darkness of the house, very much like they'd done as children at Musgrave, each time they'd fallen asleep somewhere other than their own rooms in defiance of their parents' and the nanny's efforts to regulate their bedtime routines.

Sherlock squeezed his hand when they reached the landing, so he stopped and turned to his brother, who wrapped them both in the duvet, encircled Mycroft in his arms, and kissed him long and deeply, in a very different way from the innocent, exploratory kisses in the library. It seemed that the nap, and this twilight state of waking from sleep, had dissolved the boundaries that had had Sherlock treating Mycroft with caution all evening – he was as good as naked in his longing.

"I guess you should get more rest," Sherlock whispered when he reluctantly ended the kiss.

Mycroft read him as easily as an unfurled, uncoded scroll in plain English, and found himself ready, finally, to meet him exactly where he was. "Once the most crucial parts of the operation were over last night, Anthea threatened me with death if I didn't go to sleep, so I did. For four hours. Which means I'm quite awake, as a matter of fact," he revealed.

"Really?" Sherlock's voice came out husky, bearing a note of not daring to believe what he was hearing.

"Really," Mycroft replied, nuzzling his face. "If you're up for it, I'd very much like to make love to you now."

Mycroft felt a shiver that had begun in Sherlock's body end in his own, like they were one being. His forthrightness appeared to have left Sherlock momentarily speechless, so Mycroft took him by the hand again and led him into his room.

"How do you want me, Mycroft?" Sherlock asked, finding his voice, though it was barely above a whisper.

"I'm tempted to just have you right up against this door," Mycroft answered in a low tone, walking his brother backwards against the inside surface of the door until it shut with a click, and he pinned Sherlock to it in the darkness. The duvet wrapped around them slipped to the floorboards at their feet.

"You _could_ do that," Sherlock said breathily, a telltale lilt in his voice suggesting that he was smiling. "I wouldn't complain."

"Tell me what you pictured in the past, when you imagined us together," Mycroft prompted, mouthing Sherlock's left ear.

"My imagination is practical, to-the-point and terribly unsophisticated, as you know, and my teenage fantasies were even more so," Sherlock confessed teasingly while his fingers undid Mycroft's dressing gown tie. "Honestly, my favourite fantasy simply had you fucking me into the mattress."

Mycroft drew a sharp breath but kept his voice level enough to ask: "Were you on your back? Or did I grab you by the scruff of your neck and hold you face down on the bed?"

"I'm pretty sure you did me both ways. Very thoroughly."

It took a good amount of Mycroft's self-control not to order Sherlock to his knees at once to suck him off. Instead, he growled softly: "Did I make you cry and beg for mercy?"

"You made me cry and beg for _more_."

Despite the groan that escaped him, Mycroft managed to ask steadily enough: "Was it dark like this?"

"No. You had the lights on because you wanted to see every inch of me, every expression that crossed my face."

Mycroft tapped the light switch on the wall beside them and looked at Sherlock, skin flushed, eyes dark, back pressed against the door, hands moving to push Mycroft's dressing gown off his shoulders.

"Was there no tenderness in that fantasy of yours?" Mycroft asked with a quirk of an eyebrow, touching a kiss to Sherlock's lips.

"I'm _very_ open to leaving the finer details to you," Sherlock kissed him back as he slid his hands down Mycroft's body.

"Hmm… as you've had three days to explore every drawer in this house in my absence, I suppose you know I stocked up several days ago on what you complained I didn't have here the last time."

"Will I be incriminating myself if I say I do?"

"You'll incriminate yourself anyway when I tell you to open the drawer holding the items," Mycroft told him. "Choose what you'd like us to consider using, and place it on the bed."

Sherlock smirked, slipped out from between Mycroft and the door, and opened the bottom bedside drawer. Obviously having already familiarised himself with what was in there, he took out two types of lubricant, several condoms, wipes, a set of anal plugs, surgical gloves, a few lengths of rope, and black leather wrist and ankle cuffs with snap hooks.

Mycroft's eyebrows rose. _Some_ of those items definitely hadn't been in that drawer the last time he'd looked. "It appears that you're sure enough about what you'd like us to do to have added to my stash," he murmured, from the other side of the bed, casting his eye over the objects, particularly the ones he hadn't bought.

"If you're to fuck me into the mattress, you'll have to get me ready," Sherlock stated pragmatically. "You've always been finicky about hygiene, so I'm giving you the option of wearing surgical gloves while prepping me, and condoms when I'm ready for you to get down to it. You also know I'm bloody headstrong and contrary. Even though I want this and am telling you this, I might perversely make things difficult for you halfway through, so you might want to restrain me as a reminder not to trip you up purely out of mischief – there's nothing here I can't get out of in an emergency, but unless I purposely reach for the snap hooks, I won't be able to just break free."

"And the plugs?" Mycroft asked curiously.

"In case you don't want to have to keep your fingers inside me all the time while getting me ready – one of those can stay in while you do… other things, if you like."

It ought to have been absurd, or terribly bizarre, or the equivalent of a pail of cold water flung over them to be standing there in their vanilla sleepwear over one corner of the bed, an array of sex-related accoutrements between them, talking about hygiene and logistics as unromantically as if they were discussing how to execute a field operation – or assemble a piece of Scandinavian furniture, for that matter. But this was how he and Sherlock had always interacted whenever they got down reasonably amicably to business – any sort of business – and as Mycroft found, it didn't feel absurd or bizarre or un-erotic. It felt intimate, trusting and interesting, dreadfully grown-up, and very arousing.

"All right," Mycroft said at last. "Come here."

Sherlock stepped around to the foot of the bed, and Mycroft undressed him, unbuttoning his pyjama top, slipping it off, folding it and placing it on the chair near the door. He undid Sherlock's drawstring slacks, lowered himself into a crouch to slip them down his legs, and let him step out of them. He folded these as well and placed them on the chair. Then he removed his own pyjama top but left the bottoms on. Slipping a hand round the nape of Sherlock's neck, he pulled him in and kissed him as he backed him against the bed until he had to sit on the mattress, then shuffle back to lie down on top of the bedcover.

"You've told me what you want me to do, and what you're ready to have me use on you. I won't exceed that," Mycroft told him, straddling his body but otherwise not touching him. "But you will leave it to me to determine exactly how I'll go about it."

Sherlock's pupils dilated even further, and he nodded wordlessly. He was already half-hard, and his erection filled out completely when Mycroft proceeded to buckle the leather cuffs onto his wrists.

"Not too tight?" Mycroft murmured.

"No."

He picked up one of the snap-hook pairs and slipped them into the rings on the cuffs to lock them together. "Show me that you can unlock them in an emergency."

Sherlock demonstrated how easy it was for his fingers to reach the levers of the snap hooks, open them and slip them out of the rings, unlinking the cuffs.

"And if your wrists aren't bound together, but separately, with rope?" Mycroft asked, knotting one of the lengths of rope through the ring on Sherlock's left wrist and pulling the rope taut off to the side.

It was trickier, but with his flexible joints and deft fingers, he could bend his wrist and last two digits enough to work at the knot, which loosened after a couple of minutes.

Mycroft shook his head. "Too difficult. If I do use rope, I'll also affix the hooks and tie it to the hooks instead, so if something goes wrong, you can free yourself at once."

"Okay."

Mycroft shifted down to Sherlock's feet to buckle the ankle cuffs on. He didn't know what configuration Sherlock had expected him to use once he put the cuffs into play, but judging by the flash of surprise darting across his face, his brother probably hadn't quite anticipated what he did next: He linked Sherlock's right wrist cuff to his right ankle cuff, and the left wrist cuff to the left ankle cuff, forcing him to hold his legs apart if he wanted to keep his feet on the mattress; if he chose to bring his feet together, he would have to lift them – and his bottom – off the mattress. Either way, it left him very exposed.

If Sherlock's erection had flagged at all during the minutes of working at the knot, this corrected the matter, because he was now fully hard, leaking at the tip.

"You like this," Mycroft observed, not even needing to make it a question.

"Only with you," Sherlock's voice dropped to a low-timbred whisper again.

"Have you done this before with anyone else?"

"Began a couple of times, stopped when I couldn't trust them."

Feeling a surge of possessiveness, Mycroft gripped Sherlock's chin with his thumb and forefinger and tipped his head back, exposing his throat. He ran his teeth over his neck, drawing gasps and guttural moans from him, while with his other hand, he stroked Sherlock's erection. When he was whimpering with urgency, Mycroft stopped and drew back to look at the bound, panting mess that his brother already was, even though they were only getting started.

Ignoring Sherlock's whine of protest, he turned away to examine the items they hadn't used yet. He extracted a pair of surgical gloves and chose the water-based lubricant – it wouldn't break the latex down, and would also be safe for use with the silicone plugs. He positioned himself between Sherlock's legs, and spoke to him as he pulled the gloves on: "I _am_ finicky about hygiene. However, you've always been an exception for me, and I honestly don't care how filthy my fingers, mouth or cock get, as long as I'm getting them filthy with you. But I'm wearing these because I want to be able to pull off the gloves and touch you immediately elsewhere without first having to scrub my nails in the bathroom for endless minutes, all right?"

Sherlock nodded, eyes still blown dark, a whimper dancing on the edge of his vocal cords.

Mycroft poured a generous amount of lubricant onto the gloved fingers of his right hand and coated his brother's nether orifice with it, circling the opening patiently, nudging inside by a millimetre or two, but not really entering him yet. Sherlock's breathing grew heavier, and his muscles flexed and twitched under the skin, but he lay still and offered no resistance, so Mycroft introduced one finger, watching Sherlock's face attentively as he slowly moved it in and out.

He poured on more lube before adding a second digit. While one finger had been easy, two weren't, and Mycroft had to patiently wait for the tight, clamping pressure to ease marginally before he began thrusting gently into Sherlock, pausing every time he saw the tiniest flicker of discomfort. It took several minutes to coax his body through this step, and he kept his eyes on Sherlock's face throughout. His brother looked back at him, occasionally glancing away with what Mycroft could swear was the hint of a blush suffusing his cheeks. Mycroft dropped a little kiss against the inside of Sherlock's right knee and leaned forward between his thighs to place his clean hand gently and reassuringly over his abdomen.

"Breathe," he said softly, smiling as he felt the deep rise and dip of Sherlock's belly, and some of his nervousness dissipating.

"Will you ever not offer obvious advice?" Sherlock asked tightly, aiming for a touch of lightness but not quite managing it.

"I live to annoy you, sweetheart," Mycroft smirked, seizing the opportunity of Sherlock's startled reaction at the term of endearment to slide back out and work a third finger in. Sherlock inhaled and exhaled deeply and steadily; to keep him distracted, Mycroft kissed, nibbled and licked up him up and down his raised, spread thighs, leaving him quivering, so that he wasn't too tense when Mycroft began to move his three fingers back and forth, then curled them slightly and brushed against his prostate gland with feather-light strokes.

It was too intense. Sherlock's back arched, and an attenuated cry strained through his vocal cords.

"Too much?" Mycroft asked, stroking Sherlock's thigh soothingly with his other hand.

"N-no, but maybe hold off for now, if you want to continue playing with me," Sherlock panted out.

"Then let's use this next," he said, picking up the medium-diameter silicone plug which would stretch Sherlock more than his three fingers, but wasn't curved at the tip, making it unlikely to over-stimulate the gland.

"Okay," Sherlock said, before chewing on his lip and adding: "It's still not as big as _you_ , though."

Mycroft definitely a felt a blush stealing into his own cheeks now, but he fought it by focusing on carefully withdrawing his fingers and slicking up the plug with lube before starting to press it in. Sherlock exhaled audibly, but with no indication of pain, because working the tapered tip in was no problem. However, the fact that its girth increased towards its base meant that it needed time, patience, and Sherlock to relax his body before the widest part could slip past the internal muscle which closed around the narrower neck of the plug while the flared base remained safely outside.

"All right?" Mycroft asked.

Sherlock nodded, watching Mycroft keenly as he stripped off the surgical gloves and dropped them into the wastepaper basket near the bedside table. To be doubly careful, Mycroft pulled out a few sheets of the wipes and cleaned his hands, then turned back to his brother.

"Would you like me to use a condom after I remove the plug?" Mycroft asked, lying on his side and running his now-bare fingertips over Sherlock's chest.

"Only if you want to," Sherlock answered, sounding a little short of breath as his back arched in reaction to Mycroft's touch and, probably, in response to the way the plug inside him was just lightly pressing against his prostate.

"You don't mind either way?"

"If you're asking, it means you've probably seen enough of my recent _confidential_ medical records to know I'm clean," Sherlock said pointedly. " _And_ I gather that you are too, otherwise you wouldn't even ask – you'd just use protection without consulting me."

"You think I've been snooping into your records?" Mycroft smiled.

"The world would end before I expected any less from you," Sherlock huffed before tensing and squirming again.

"Do you want a peek at _my_ records, in return?" he asked, running his fingers all the way down into Sherlock's thatch of pubic hair.

"N-not necessary," he stuttered. "You'd never do anything to harm me."

"I _did_ offer you as bait to Moriarty and Eurus."

"Only because you thought you were in full control."

"You trust me, then, your _archenemy_?" he asked warmly.

"More than anyone in the world. What's the point of having an archenemy of a brother if I can't keep him even closer than my real enemies? Or my old _lovers_?"

Mycroft covered Sherlock's mouth with his own to feel, taste and swallow the gasp that escaped him when he palmed his swollen cock before wrapping his hand around the shaft. Then he leaned back and observed every expression that flitted over Sherlock's face as he stroked him.

Sherlock was a contradiction. He had a domineering streak of his own to match Mycroft's controlling character, and it was in his nature to throw a spanner into people's works just to observe their reactions. So it was a good idea of his to have Mycroft use the cuffs on him this first time they were preparing to engage in full penetrative sex. But woven into the imperiousness of his personality was a submissive thread that reacted positively to others taking command – if they knew what they were doing. Mycroft had seen him respond _very_ well to stern orders from John, Lestrade, Molly Hooper, and once in a blue moon, even Mrs Hudson. Sherlock had spent too many years deliberately challenging Mycroft out of sheer bloody-mindedness for him to easily gauge his responsiveness to him. But if their recent sexual interactions were anything to go by, Sherlock derived a good amount of pleasure from submitting to him.

Mycroft, on the other hand, wasn't very good at playing the submission game. Although he tended to be easily embarrassed, and his outward manners and mannerisms, speech and conduct were superficially gentler and more refined than Sherlock's, it was all undergirded with steel. Sherlock was brash, loud, physical, overbearing, often offensive, but at his core, he could be like putty in the hands of people he cared about.

Which probably made Mycroft and Sherlock a very good match in bed. And on the job. And as a united front against the world. If they could remain on good terms…

"You're _thinking_ something," Sherlock gasped out, writhing under his ministrations.

Mycroft withdrew his hand, provoking a grunt of protest which was cut short when Sherlock saw he was picking up the lube. "I'm thinking that I'd like to reduce you to a wreck even _before_ I fuck you into the mattress," Mycroft said thoughtfully, prompting another sharp intake of breath. "And I'm going to watch you come."

With that statement of intent, he firmly wrapped Sherlock's cock again in his lube-slicked right palm and started slow and shallow before varying the rhythm, changing it up each time Sherlock got into it. The fingers of his left hand circled Sherlock's nipples and pinched them lightly, driving him to distraction. When Sherlock seemed to be on the brink, he eased off and played gently with his balls while kissing his mouth just so he couldn't protest with words. Then when he stopped straining at the cuffs in frustration and submitted to the tongue-tangling and toying with his scrotal sac, Mycroft resumed paying attention to his shaft, sitting back up and working his left hand into his hair to hold his head in place, tipped back, face exposed, with nowhere to hide.

He worked him with a steady rhythm now, varying it only briefly to heighten the tension. With his hair tangled in Mycroft's fingers, and his wrists shackled to his ankles, Sherlock couldn't turn his head away or bury his face in his arms – his eyes darted from Mycroft's face to his chest to the ceiling of the bedroom, looking for a place to retreat to and finding none.

"Sherlock, darling, I said I wanted to watch you come, and I meant it," Mycroft said softly but firmly, tightening his fingers in his curls.

Sherlock bit his lips, shut his eyes, fought Mycroft's hold for a few seconds – but didn't reach for the snap hooks to release himself. He elected to remain bound, though he still struggled a little more, futilely, until he couldn't hold back his surrender as Mycroft steadily worked him towards his climax. He gave in to helpless cries of pleasure as he threw his head back even further than Mycroft's hand in his hair had positioned him, and came with a hot, intense rush of cum spurting out over his body, over Mycroft's hand and arm, over the bedcover. _Beautiful. The look on his face, his parted lips, his half-lidded eyes, the sheen of sweat on his skin, the taut line of his entire body as he climaxed… just… beautiful._

While Sherlock lay there in semi-delirium, panting and perspiring, Mycroft stripped off his own pyjama bottoms and shifted to kneel between his brother's legs. With Sherlock's orgasm having relaxed his muscles, Mycroft was able to slowly and steadily draw the silicone plug out of him without causing discomfort. As Sherlock stirred and began to peel his eyes open, Mycroft slathered his own now-painfully hard cock in plenty of lubricant, positioned it at Sherlock's opening, and pressed in. _So sinfully hot and snug and utterly perfect…_

" _Hnnnnhh…_ Mycroft," Sherlock moaned, struggling weakly against the restraints.

"Uncuff yourself," Mycroft ordered gruffly as he resisted the instinct to thrust hard into him from the get-go.

With shaky fingers, Sherlock released the snap hooks and unbuckled his wrist cuffs, though with Mycroft pressing him down as he pushed half the length of his shaft into him, he couldn't remove the ankle ones. But it didn't matter – his limbs were free now, and that was what Mycroft wanted.

"Is this all right?" Mycroft asked tightly, pushing in by another inch, not yet allowing his own sensations of pleasure to cause him to forget Sherlock's comfort.

"Shut up and fuck me," Sherlock growled, wrapping his arms around Mycroft's shoulders and hooking his ankles, still circled in leather, behind Mycroft's arse, pulling him down, pulling him in.

" _Sherlock…_ " Mycroft breathed, burying his cock deep inside him, making them both moan with the pleasure of taking and being taken.

He pulled back almost to the very tip, then thrust slowly back in at a sharper angle, the head of his penis sliding over Sherlock's prostate gland and sending a full-body shiver through him.

"It's too… oh god, _Mycroft_ … I don't think I can… it's… _nnggh…_ " Sherlock was practically incoherent, but his body language was eloquent, his encircling arms, thighs and ankles keeping Mycroft in place despite his overstimulation, simply _demanding_ more even when it seemed impossible.

Mycroft glided over the hypersensitive spot a few more times, which nearly left Sherlock babbling. But he soon changed the angle of his thrusts, easing the intensity for his brother while letting Mycroft set a pace that allowed him to satisfy himself. When he found a blissful, steady rhythm, he buried his face in the curve of Sherlock's creamy neck, breathing in the heat of his scent, flicking his tongue against the light, salty tang of sweat on his skin, and immersing his senses in the delectable familiarity of the warm body beneath his.

And Sherlock was holding him, caressing his shoulders, running his hands over the length of his spine, squeezing his arms, smoothing his palms down his flanks, loving him back, wanting him as much as he was wanted, wanting _more_ of him. Mycroft nuzzled his throat, his smooth jawline, his cheeks, and kissed him on the mouth again, deeply, as he felt the leather and metal of the ankle cuffs digging into his buttocks, with Sherlock wanting him, faster, harder, deeper – it seemed he liked this angle and rhythm too.

Mycroft drove in firmly, demanding more from Sherlock as well when he realised that the growing hardness he could feel under his belly meant that he might possibly be able to coax Sherlock into another climax. He himself couldn't remember having such a short refractory period once he was past his early twenties, but either Sherlock was _extremely_ turned on by Mycroft, or he was simply built a little differently. Perhaps it was a combination of both.

"Can you come for me again?" he asked, nipping at his neck and ears.

"I'll t-try…"

"I can feel you getting hard again, little by little," Mycroft purred persuasively. "You're getting it up, aren't you, Sherlock? One more time – you _can_ , can't you? You're so beautiful when you come for me…"

Between their bodies, they both felt Sherlock's prick twitch again as another throaty, involuntary moan escaped through his parted lips. "Mycroft… don't slow down…"

"Do you want me to finish inside you?"

"You'd _better_ ," Sherlock all but hissed, staring up at him out of dazed, lust-glazed eyes as he made Mycroft groan with pleasure by taking him all the way in, balls-deep in his body.

It almost sent Mycroft over the edge, but he kept going for a good number of minutes more until Sherlock was sporting another full erection. He was still oversensitised and almost wrung dry, but Mycroft offered no mercy when he transferred most of his weight to his left elbow and reached down with his right hand to exact from him what he demanded. He pumped Sherlock's cock three times, four, five… thrust into him again at a different angle… made him cry out… and even saw tears form at the corners of his eyes. That was when, within the grip of his hand, he felt the sudden further hardening of Sherlock's prick and the rush of cum as it flowed forth – though not as copiously as the first time – and Sherlock was moaning and arching his way through a second orgasm.

That did it for Mycroft too. He took his weight back onto both his arms and drove into Sherlock without holding back until his rhythm stuttered and he came in a consuming rush of pleasure, making animal-like cries against Sherlock's neck as he shot his ejaculate deep into his body.

His arms gave out under him, and he collapsed on top of Sherlock, panting heavily, mute and unthinking from the incredible flood of chemicals coursing through him, probably like the best of his brother's drugs, but without the crash to follow.

"Sorry," he whispered when he came to his senses and found himself resting all his weight on Sherlock.

"I _can_ take your weight, Mycroft," Sherlock chuckled softly, his hands stroking Mycroft's hair and neck gently, tenderly, lovingly. "You're too bloody thin, remember?"

Mycroft laughed weakly at this reversal of criticism from his sibling, but he promptly adjusted the positions of his elbows to hold up more of his own weight before carefully easing himself out of Sherlock's body and lying down beside him, breathing hard.

Sherlock surely had to be as drained as he was, but to his surprise, he reached over him for the wet wipes, cleaned himself up the best he could with them, unbuckled the ankle cuffs, then leant over Mycroft and cleaned him up thoroughly too. Neither of them said so, but it was another reversal of all the times Mycroft had wiped Sherlock up – as a messy child, as a drug-addled teenager, and as a reckless adult who often overdosed on substances and danger.

He lay down beside Mycroft again and snuggled up to him, asking: "Was there enough tenderness in that for you?"

"Hmm… we might have to balance it out with more cuddling next time," Mycroft suggested.

"Can't wait."

"Really?"

Sherlock elevated himself on one elbow, looked down at Mycroft, and said: "Mycroft Holmes, you _do_ know that I'm not just using you for kinky sex, don't you?"

Mycroft let out a bark of laughter, which evidently delighted Sherlock, going by the tender smile and the glow it brought to his face.

Then Sherlock sat up, held out his hand to Mycroft and said: "Come on, I _know_ you won't be able to sleep well until you've washed up properly, cleanliness fusspot that you are."

"How well you know me," Mycroft sighed, taking Sherlock's hand, allowing himself to be pulled upright and steered into the bathroom.

From which he wasn't going to shut Sherlock out again – at least not tonight.

* * *

 **Note, 9 Dec 2018:** I've been so busy with work irl that this chapter took me much longer than usual to post. If you've read this far, thanks for waiting for me to put it up. Another note: So far, my chapters have been structured in two or four sections, alternating between Mycroft's and Sherlock's perspectives. But here, Mycroft's side of things already takes up so much space that I don't want to make the chapter ridiculously long by adding Sherlock's section as well. I'll save the latter for the next instalment. Which ultimately means that this will end up having a couple more chapters than I'd previously anticipated!


	11. Longing

**Longing**

Interesting, how quickly something significant could become a habit for him, dovetailing with the uneven edges of his life as if it had always been there. The thought entered Sherlock's mind as he stirred from sleep and instinctively reached out to the space beside him. Simultaneously, his senses and brain reminded him that Mycroft wasn't here. He was at home (or at work), while Sherlock was in Baker Street.

A mere four days with his brother, and it was already second nature to seek him in the semi-consciousness of sleep. They weren't natural snugglers, the two of them – not after a certain age – and during the night, each would settle into his own space. But for four days, they'd fallen asleep in each other's arms, reconnected by touch in the night, and sought the warmth of the other's skin on rising.

He was back to his usual state of not waking up to the sense of Mycroft near him. Back from four days of indulging in his brother's presence and rediscovering him all over again, uninterrupted by work, as he had time off after the Eskov operation. They'd carefully kept the sheets in the guest room rumpled, leaving Sherlock's overnighter, violin, petri dishes and worn sleepwear there too, and his toothbrush and towels in the attached bathroom. So if John, Anthea or their parents should show up at the front door without prior warning, less scrambling would be needed to make the house look like a normal one where an adult sibling was staying with another for a few days. And he had uncomplainingly helped Mycroft with household chores so that the cleaning staff who came in weekly – and the security fellow who kept an eye on them – could be asked not to turn up this week.

This moment, he missed him.

They'd spoken about this. They were both too independent and prickly to spend too many 24-hour days wrapped around each other. They would meet. Sherlock would stay over regularly. They might make occasional short trips out of London. But they couldn't live in each other's space at present. Perhaps later in life, when they no longer had such demanding or volatile jobs, when they wouldn't have to explain their living arrangements to Mummy and Daddy, when more of their enemies were dead, and fewer friends and associates were likely to take any interest in what they were up to. Perhaps.

But Sherlock missed Mycroft _now_. He wanted the familiar scent of his skin, the warmth of the body he'd memorised, the throaty, grumbling murmurs Mycroft sometimes made when he was dreaming and every time he woke up. He missed the rhythmic sound and movement of the rise and fall of his chest, the huffs of breath against his hair, the feeling of Mycroft's arm around his waist, the cool touch of his hand, the comforting press of his body, the taste of him. He missed waking up in the morning to the sight of Mycroft gazing at him as if he were the most beautiful thing in the world while tracing a fingertip down the bridge of his nose, the lines on his brow, the contours of his lips. He missed those moments when he might be the one to catch Mycroft still asleep, vulnerable in slumber, a furrow between his eyebrows as he plotted and schemed in his dreams to keep the kingdom and his loved ones safe.

He replayed in his mind the tenderness with which they'd made love on the second day, which was also when he'd given Mycroft a massage; the playfulness of their lovemaking on the third day; and that glorious morning of the fourth day, when Mycroft could have gone to work but decided not to, caressing Sherlock's cheek and murmuring words that Sherlock later found out were from Shakespeare's Antony to his Cleopatra: _"Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch of the ranged empire fall. Here is my space."_

Sherlock's physical self couldn't be just transport any more, not where Mycroft was concerned. For the first time in his adult life, he wanted, needed, the skin contact. But disguising it was essential. It was not possible for them to jump on each other anywhere, anytime. Not without losing everyone and everything important to them – careers, parents, friends, liberty, the fearful, grudging respect of society they currently enjoyed.

Well… they _could_ abandon everything and move permanently to France. Or Belgium. Or Luxembourg. Or maybe Germany, whose laws did not appear to consider incestuous acts between consenting blood-related adults as incestuous – as long as no vaginas were involved.

No, they couldn't. London was in their blood. Even if they chose not to live in this city when they were much older, Britain – ideally, the south of England – was the environment they thrived in. This was where they belonged.

Sherlock withdrew his arm from the empty space on his narrow Baker Street bed, curled up into a ball and closed his eyes, pulling up Mycroft's scent from the rooms in his memory – what his skin smelt and felt like when it was clean after a shower, when it was sleep-warmed, when it was heated from making love, and when it was clammy with perspiration after their exertions. Mycroft would have done the same thing upon waking up today, except he had the advantage of access to the sheets and pillows Sherlock had lain on until last evening. His old self, the one that had forgotten how much Mycroft loved him, would have cynically told him that his brother would have coldly stripped off the bed linen and replaced it with a fresh set the second he had the place to himself; his current self, which loved Mycroft back with all his heart, told him he would keep those sheets in place for a while. Just a while. Because of sentiment. Which they both now knew could rule and ruin them as much as anyone else.

But this was a new day. He had work to do and clients to be (fairly) polite to. No more wallowing in his brother's physical absence.

Sherlock opened his eyes, got out of bed, went through his morning bathroom routine, and put on some clothes. His days of wandering around the flat in nothing but a bedsheet were over while Rosie was living with them, and so many people played a part in looking after her. Mrs Hudson was up and down more often than in the past; Molly would come by when she could if the Baker Street denizens were all engaged; Sarah had helped out regularly; Mummy and Daddy had sat in the flat a couple of months ago to keep an eye on Rosie on an afternoon or two; and even Lestrade had done a little bit of babysitting.

Speaking of Lestrade, the ringtone Sherlock had allocated to his number was going off right now. (To amuse himself, he'd just changed it to the "George of the Jungle" jingle and had answered "Hello, George!" every time the inspector rang during the last four days.)

"If you call me George one more time, Sherlock, I'll bar you even from cold cases," Lestrade warned, before Sherlock could utter a syllable.

"In a bright and cheerful mood this morning, are we?" Sherlock asked.

"Actually, despite my apparent grumpiness, I _am_ in a decent mood," Lestrade admitted. "It was nice of you and Mycroft to do what I see you've done."

Sherlock knew what he meant, but didn't want to make it easy for him. "I have no idea what you're wittering on about, Gerbil."

"You know exactly what I'm referring to, you overgrown softie," Lestrade chuckled. "Arranging for a lawyer to take on Cathy Hulme's and Nellie Samuels' cases, ordering counselling therapy for them, and that official note to the remand prison to ensure Samuels gets proper medical treatment, and hospice care when nothing further can be done for her."

"Did we do that, Groundhog?"

"Yeah, Sherlock. I'm sure you two did exactly that – it has your DNA all over it, even if it was Mycroft who made the arrangements. And it really helps too that your brother sent that _very_ nice note to the Met Commissioner to thank her for her excellent judgement in allowing you to enter the dining room that night. It's made her a bit sweeter and less likely to peel off my hide for bringing you into her presence that evening – because I can tell you that she did _not_ appreciate you bullying her into letting you through."

"I didn't _bully_ her, Giraffe," Sherlock growled.

"Oh, you did," Lestrade corrected him.

"Who could bully that woman of… fortified brass?"

"You almost made her deputy cry. He's not the crying sort, that man."

"I only told him the truth!"

"He didn't _need_ to know that his beloved mother was shagging the brains out of the heating repair bloke who used to be his schoolmate."

"Didn't he?"

"Thank God Mycroft wrote him a nice letter too, or he'd probably find some way to post me to the bloody Rock of Gibraltar," Lestrade sighed. "Your brother cleans up so much of your mess after you explode onto one scene or another that he should get some kind of environmental award."

"Pffft," Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Why _are_ you calling me, Goose?"

"To tell you that you're both nicer than you make yourselves out to be."

"That sort of flattery makes no sense to me."

" _And_ to ask if you'd be interested in a case I'm on. A man's missing from his home in Croydon. He was last seen four days ago, after his wife reported him to the police for beating her black and blue, but he hasn't shown up for work since Monday. However, he's left all his fingers behind on his kitchen cabinet, along with what we've determined are two whole other sets of fingers belonging to two other people who don't seem to be connected with the first man. No sign of any fingerless victims yet, dead or alive."

"Are the fingers fresh?"

"As fresh as you'd expect when they're three days old or thereabouts."

" _Nice_."

"Coming?"

"I have a client due at noon, but I think I can swing by to have a look at your appendages and still be back in time."

"I'll text you the address. You should be able to make it here in half an hour."

"See you in 30 minutes, Gibbon."

"I don't know how anyone resists your charms, Sherlock," Lestrade grumbled with heavy irony before ending the call.

Sherlock grabbed his wallet, magnifying glass, phone and other paraphernalia, then breezed downstairs and lifted his coat off the rack.

"Sherlock, don't we have a client at…" John began, poking his head round the flat's doorway with Rosie in his arms.

"I'll be back by then," he called up the stairs. "Just popping by one of Lestrade's crime scenes – lots and lots of severed fingers. You feed Watson, and I'll give you the delicious details when I get back."

"I can probably do with fewer of the 'delicious' details if they concern severed fingers, thanks!" John yelled after him.

"I'll take lots of photos!"

"No sparing me the details, then," he heard John mutter with resignation as the main door swung shut behind him.

At the crime scene, the fingers were illuminating. He wasn't required to uncover any identities as the fingertips still had their prints. But what he could swiftly deduce was that one of the extra sets of fingers belonged to an adult male who had a lot to do with horses but either wasn't very good with them, or had to handle plenty of bad-tempered ones (lots of old scars shaped consistently with the teeth of large herbivores; horsehairs and what was probably paddock sand under the nails; a fragment of leather consistent with what might be used for tack under one nail; and callouses consistent with rough handling of reins and bridles). The other extra set belonged to another adult male who had a dog and smoked like a bonfire, drank like it was going out of fashion, and regularly shot up too (even the constables could point out the nicotine stains against the decomposing flesh, but they hadn't noticed the evidence of numerous needle sticks – no medical professional would be _that_ inept and still keep his job – so, shooting up on a regular basis while drunk off his rocker; and deep impressions of dog tooth marks on the skin over the proximal phalanges; small dog, probably a terrier). With the fingers having been separated from the bodies some time ago, Sherlock couldn't be certain, but he suspected that they had been removed post-mortem, as it seemed they hadn't been cleaned, yet showed no sign of having bled profusely.

"Not the abused wife," Sherlock murmured thoughtfully when Lestrade asked him if he had any insight into who might have done this. "She'd moved to her mother's after her husband beat her up, didn't want to go anywhere near him, finally sneaked back here when she thought he'd be at work so she could pick up the stray cat she'd been feeding that often came around the house, only to find 24 fingers and six thumbs in her kitchen. You saw her outside earlier – green about the gills. Couldn't find the cat. The animals, Lestrade – the animals are the main thing. These people haven't been nice to the quadrupeds they have access to, and someone's been watching. Since you know who the man of the house is, as well as the other two from their prints, just find one acquaintance in common who knows them well enough to be aware of how abusive they've been. The wife may not be behind this, but she could be the reason the perpetrator left the fingers here – a way of telling her 'it's all over now, sorry about the cat, but don't worry, your husband's never coming back'. The terrier is in bad shape, but has probably been rescued by the finger-amputator. The cat is dead. The horses are likely to be all right, no major or permanent injuries."

"How do you know the cat's dead?" Lestrade asked curiously.

"Down the road, unoccupied house – blue door, number 35. Smell of decay coming from near the back hedge. Not a major, in-your-face decomposition odour you'd get from a mostly-intact human body, but something smallish, half-buried. The scrawny hedge's probably not thick enough to stuff an adult person's remains under, but a cat would fit nicely. A matter of probability. Of course, there's also a chance that it's the late Mr Williamson's foot, or liver, or whatever."

"Oh Lord…" Lestrade muttered, whipping out his phone to instruct one of the constables to check for a dead cat at number 35 and make sure it wasn't a human body or body part decaying under the back hedge.

"Williamson's killer might have figured out that he'd done away with the cat, but obviously wasn't in the neighbourhood at a time when he or she could have prevented it. He or she also didn't have an opportunity to give the cat a proper burial, but might be waiting for a chance to climb into that compound to reach the corpse. Check if anyone's been spotted hovering about that end of the street in the past four days. He – I'm inclined to believe it's a he, not a she – left the fingers here because this was where he snapped. He found out about the cat's death, killed Williamson, severed the fingers because… yes, of course… Williamson strangled the cat with his bare hands – see those hairs? Left the fingers here, removed the rest of Williamson's body. Then proceeded to carry out a vendetta against two other people he'd known to be unkind to their animals, and added their fingers to the display. No bloodstains here, so Williamson's probably dead from being struck by a blunt object, or strangling, or hanging. Nothing here to hang someone from. Judging by his photo in the sitting room, big bloke, thick neck, probably not easy to choke or strangle. Try the blunt weapon theory first."

"Right. Thanks. I think," Lestrade sighed, rubbing the flat of his hand over his forehead, as if to rub away a fast-developing headache. "I don't feel very sorry for the owners of these fingers, I'm afraid. Still, we can't have vigilantes running around topping others and lopping off their appendages."

Lestrade's phone chimed. He raised his eyebrows as he glanced at the message, and he said to Sherlock. "It's your brother. Says Neil Peters – the horse guy – is a person of interest to the SIS, and I'm to inform him the moment we find his body."

A second later, Sherlock himself had a message:

 **Mycroft  
** _Do Neil Peters' fingers have silica trapped under the nails?_

 **Sherlock  
** _Yes. Most likely paddock sand?_

 **Mycroft  
** _Excellent. We might just find what we're looking for._

 **Sherlock  
** _Can you tell me what that is?_

 **Mycroft  
** _The information can't be cleared for release beyond my immediate team yet, but I will tell you when it won't compromise operations._

Before Sherlock could respond, Lestrade spoke again: "He's even here in person."

"What?" Sherlock asked, surprised.

"Your brother's outside. I don't know why it's important enough for him to show up when we don't have the body he wants yet."

Leaving the crime scene in the care of the SOCOs and one of the detective sergeants (not Donovan – she was elsewhere on the hunt for the fingerless individuals, apparently), Lestrade and Sherlock stepped outside. They found Mycroft's black Jaguar idling by the pavement, and the humans who had just emerged from it intimidating the constables with their JIC and MI6 identifications.

"Hey, Mycroft," Lestrade greeted him when he stepped out of the car as Andrew, his driver and regular bodyguard, glanced calmly about for potential danger. "You look… _different_ today."

"Do I?" Mycroft asked the detective inspector coolly.

"Yeah, you do – you're… ah, that's it – it's the scarf – I don't think I've ever seen your neck wrapped in a scarf."

"It was a gift," Mycroft said. "From someone very important to me."

"Oh, someone _important_! Well, a scarf's always useful for covering up love bites!" Lestrade grinned – undoubtedly still under the warm and fuzzy influence of what he'd said to Sherlock over the phone about Mycroft being a nice person. In the next second, when he remembered just who he was talking to, and that Mycroft wasn't _often_ nice, he hastily added: " _Not_ that _you'd_ need to do any covering up of love bites."

"Detective Inspector Lestrade, are you implying that I would find it hard to… 'get laid', in the common parlance?" Mycroft raised an eyebrow.

"Oh God, no," Lestrade had his hands up, palms out, desperately trying to deflect the horror he had visited upon himself. "I have no doubt that someone like you could get laid at the snap of your fingers. Just… I just don't imagine it would often be a scenario whose outcome would leave you with _love bites_."

"So you imagine scenarios in which I have sex in a robotic and businesslike manner, with no passion whatsoever," Mycroft remarked neutrally, in a not-a-question way.

Lestrade was smart enough to know when he was digging himself a very deep grave, and quickly back-pedalled even further to save himself. "I apologise, Mycroft. I don't spend any time at all picturing sexual scenarios that involve you. Promise. Not at all. Just putting my foot squarely in my mouth – think of it as some sort of yoga exercise. So, _back to business_! Can we be of any help to you here?"

"I was nearby when I learnt about the identities of the people whose fingers you have in that house," Mycroft said.

Which Sherlock knew was hardly the truth. Even if the Home Office _did_ have a major division in Croydon.

"I therefore made a small detour to emphasise how crucial it is that I should be informed the moment Neil Peters' body is located," Mycroft went on. "Anything and everything recovered from or near his person should be meticulously recorded."

"Which is what we _always_ do," Lestrade assured him. "You didn't need to tell me that."

"And you didn't need to tell me about your sexual fantasies involving me, detective inspector," Mycroft smiled.

"Oh for pity's sake, stop _flirting_ with each other, the two of you," Sherlock snapped. "Or get a fucking room."

This was met with a squawk (85 percent outraged, 15 percent horrified) from Lestrade, and a small hiccup-like noise from Mycroft, which Sherlock cut off with another demand: "Mycroft, why are you here?"

"To flirt with the detective inspector, of course," Mycroft snapped back at him. "And to talk to you."

"If your talk has nothing to do with this case, I'll leave you two to it," Lestrade said, backing away. "If there's anything else about the investigation, just text me – no flirting necessary."

They watched him walk back into the house, then Sherlock and Mycroft slid into the back seat of the car, shut the door, and put up the privacy screen.

"Why _are_ you here?" Sherlock asked in a warmer, more curious tone once they were alone, without the possibility of being overheard or lip-read.

"I missed you," Mycroft said simply.

"I missed you too," Sherlock replied, reaching for him and pressing his face against Mycroft's cheek.

"My bed felt terribly empty last night, and this morning."

"So did mine," Sherlock confessed.

"I thought even more of you after I learnt, early this morning, that Zhu Zheng wasn't going to make it. I went to the hospital to see him just before he passed."

"Why did you do that?" Sherlock asked, drawing back a little to look at him.

"Even if he couldn't hear me, I wanted to tell him that I understood how he felt. I understand what it means to love one's sibling in such an all-consuming way that life seems pointless when you've lost that loved one, even after a quarter of a century has passed. Sherlock, if anything unfortunate happens to me, at any time – whether it's tomorrow or next year or ten years from now – I don't want you to become either directionless _or_ warped by an obsession with revenge, or for your life to be anything less splendid than what it ought to be."

"Mycroft…"

"Live fully. That's what I want you to do. Do you hear me?"

"Are you trying to order me around again?" Sherlock asked.

"In this case, yes," Mycroft gave a small smile. "I am ordering you never to end up anything like that man I just visited in hospital today before he died. When I'm gone, don't look back."

"I'll look back as much as I please."

"People who look back have a tendency to end up being turned into pillars of salt, or losing their dead wives, or unpleasant things to that effect."

"We're not Lot's missus or Orpheus. I'll look back all I want."

"I can't stop you, but I hope that even if you insist on casting backward glances, you'll keep walking ahead. Just don't trip and fall over your future while you're keeping your eyes on your past."

"You're not in trouble, are you?" Sherlock asked suspiciously.

"Not in the slightest. Not that I know of. This isn't a disguised goodbye talk, I assure you. I wanted to say it because we don't have the safest careers, and anything could happen to us at any moment. So I want you to promise me that you will keep yourself very well and out of trouble after I'm gone, because by then, I won't be here to save you."

"I'll… do my best. But you know, if _I_ should die before _you_ , I fully expect you to nuke the fuckers who took me out."

Mycroft laughed, and Sherlock snorted – mostly at himself, for realising, sappily, how much he loved the sound of Mycroft's laughter.

"Free for dinner tonight?" Sherlock asked, when they'd stopped chuckling.

"Not tonight, I'm afraid."

"Working on this case?"

"It's not work, but it is an obligation. How about tomorrow evening, barring a major crisis? The day before Mummy and Daddy descend on you for the musical?"

"Tomorrow's good. Don't work yourself too hard."

"I'll shirk all the duties I can trick Anthea into taking on. As for you, don't pocket any of the fingers."

"But they're so pocketable," Sherlock pouted.

"Sherlock."

"All right. No fingers. And Anthea's not trickable, but you know that. See you tomorrow."

Mycroft was driven away in his car, and Sherlock purposely didn't watch him go, so that anyone who might be looking on would have no reason to believe their relationship wasn't still antagonistic.

He finished up at Lestrade's crime scene, then returned to Baker Street to see the client. (The case involved her daughter's vanishing fiancé – a _literally_ vanishing fiancé, for the man was a magician who had stepped into a covered box during a rehearsal for a show, and never re-emerged, to the bafflement of his assistants and the stage hands.)

That evening, Molly had an appointment with Mrs Hudson to bake a few batches of biscuits for a hospital charity drive, and the two women said they'd be happy to keep an eye on Rosie in Mrs Hudson's flat. So Sherlock and John went out to Angelo's for dinner – the first time they'd eaten out together without Rosie for what felt like an age. A calm hour over an excellent Italian meal with no fussing baby, no serial-killing cab driver to chase, and no worrying that Sherlock had spiked the dessert.

After dinner, they walked along the cobblestoned Soho streets in the direction of Oxford Circus while looking for an available cab, so they could either travel two stops on the Tube and a take a bit of a walk, or have a more comfortable ride in a taxi if one turned up.

As they neared one of the fanciest wine bars in the area, Sherlock spotted a familiar-looking face in the window, together with another man, both nursing what looked like sparkling water. Both were looking around rather than focusing on conversation or each other. The first man was one of Mycroft's people, and the other man with him was… a person he'd seen guarding someone from the Cabinet before…

 _Oh. That one._

He looked further into the wine bar through the window (by now, Mycroft's man had recognised him) and spotted his brother in a cosy nook with Lady Smallwood. They were laughing about something, and she placed her right hand on top of his left – and he didn't pull away.

 _"It's not work, but it is an obligation."_ He remembered Mycroft's words to him this morning, and he really, truly wanted to just nod at his brother's security man and walk on with John.

But it didn't matter what he told himself to do. His feet wouldn't carry him along the pavement. Neither could he seem to attach any importance to the "obligation" part of Mycroft's statement as he heavily weighted the "it's not work" portion with significance. He couldn't see past her hand on Mycroft's.

"Sherlock? What's the matter?" John asked, quick to spot that their coming to a stop wasn't just because he was curious about the wine list displayed in the window. He followed the line of his eyes to the far end of the bar, and finally saw what he'd seen. "Mycroft! With… oh, wow, isn't that Lady Elizabeth Smallwood? Are they _seeing_ each other?"

Sherlock couldn't find his voice to answer at first. He gave John a silent glance, then stared back into the bar, looked at John again, and finally summoned the words: "I'm going in."

"But we're not drinking tonight… oh… _oh!_ Erm, no – absolutely _not_. Mycroft is on a _date_. Do _not_ walk up to them and make trouble…" John began, trying to grab at Sherlock's arm as he strode towards the doorway. "Sherlock, come back here… Sherlock, you've just been getting along great with Mycroft – don't bloody ruin everything… damn it, you never listen to me, do you?"

By now, he was through the door and John was helplessly trailing him, trying not to make a scene. They were greeted by a sommelier, but a simple gesture of a brisk, businesslike smile and a wave of a finger in the direction of Mycroft's table communicated that they were only here to see someone they knew. Mycroft's man was getting to his feet, but Mycroft had already sensed his brother's presence and was looking up.

They locked eyes. Still, he took at least three seconds to smoothly glide his hand away from Lady Smallwood's.

"Mycroft," Sherlock greeted him in what he hoped was a neutral voice. "Lady Smallwood. We were passing by after dinner."

The flicker of Lady Smallwood's eyes towards a point just behind Sherlock told him that John was standing there, looking apologetic.

"Mr Holmes, Dr Watson," she greeted them. "Are you here to try some of the wine as well?"

"No, we just stopped to say hello," Sherlock said. "I hope your date with my brother is going well."

"How kind of you to check on us," Mycroft remarked, his face giving away nothing of his feelings.

"Sorry for interrupting your conversation," John spoke, stepping closer to the table and giving Sherlock's coat a tug. "We were on our way home, and we really must be going – the landlady's babysitting for us."

"I hope your daughter is very well, Dr Watson," Lady Smallwood smiled.

Sherlock felt worse about the fact that her smile seemed genuine.

"Rosie's doing great, thanks, Lady Smallwood!" John grinned. " _Sherlock_ , we should make a move."

"We should. Enjoy your _date_."

He turned and strode out of the wine bar, leaving John to make an apologetic goodbye before hurrying after him. Casting a single backward glance through the window only showed him that Mycroft's eyes were back on Lady Smallwood, not on him, and going by what he could lip-read, his brother was saying: "… can never tell what he's up to…"

"Sherlock, _what_ are you annoyed about?" John asked, baffled about what he'd just been dragged into.

"Nothing," he replied tersely.

"Don't… just _don't_ make things as bad as they were between you and Mycroft again, all right? I know we agreed you shouldn't be _too_ nice to each other in public in case anyone uses you against each other, but there's no need to drag your relationship all the way back into the deepest mire, okay? Please?"

"Sure," Sherlock growled, feeling angry with himself for feeling angry at all. Logically, he knew that whatever went on between Mycroft and Lady Smallwood was business, friendship and comradeship. Even if they were having sex, it was still just that and no more. And whatever Mycroft said about Sherlock to Lady Smallwood or anyone else was for show, to make it appear there was no change in what he and Sherlock were. He _knew_ all that. But he seemed unable to exercise logic well when Mycroft was involved – not in the years when he'd stubbornly labelled him "fat" although he was thin as a rail, not the years when they'd fought over everything even when it made no sense, and not now when he loved him. Logic had failed him then, and was failing him now.

They managed to flag down a cab, rode back to Baker Street mostly in silence, then he went to his room, closed the door, and sat on his bed in the darkness, knowing he was sulking but not wanting to give it that undignified name. Contemplating. Considering. Wallowing. Whatever. His phone rang and chimed and beeped at some point – at several points – but he ignored it.

He didn't actively take note of how much time was passing, but he gauged that it was about two hours later when he heard Mycroft's voice in the sitting room.

"I apologise for the lateness of my visit, Mrs Hudson, John, but I must see Sherlock."

"He's still sulking in his room – over what, I haven't the foggiest," John's voice came in response.

"I don't know that your going in there won't make it _worse_ ," Mrs Hudson remarked.

"Nor do I, I'm afraid," Mycroft admitted.

"Just give it a go," John sighed. "What's the worst that could happen? He might try to snap your arm again, but you'll survive that. At least, I'll do my best to make sure you survive it."

"You didn't do anything to upset him, did you?" Mrs Hudson asked.

He didn't answer in any way that Sherlock could make out with his ears. The next thing he heard was Mycroft's soft/firm rap on his bedroom door, and his voice: "Sherlock, I'm coming in."

Somehow, Mycroft knew that he hadn't locked the door. Now, why hadn't he locked it, if he wanted to… contemplate things in isolation? Was it not precisely because he had actually hoped that Mycroft would come? Of course it was. Damn his stupid newfound sentiments.

Annoyed with himself, he wanted to say something cutting the moment the door opened, but the sight of Mycroft's familiar, slender silhouette – bloody umbrella and all, backlit by the sitting room lights – drove the point right home to his heart that he was exactly what he'd been longing to see. It made his throat clamp up at once; he couldn't speak.

Mycroft closed the door behind him, plunging them both back into the darkness of Sherlock's room, and before Sherlock could unclog his throat and summon those hard words he wished he could say, Mycroft once again employed his impeccable timing to tell him: "I'm switching on the light."

His brother pressed the wall switch, and the overhead light came on. Sherlock blinked a little after so long in the dark, but he didn't otherwise move from his position on his bed, sitting up cross-legged, back resting against the wall.

Mycroft locked the door, leaned his umbrella against the side of the wardrobe and somehow toed off his not-exactly-toe-offable shoes, then wordlessly sat on the bed beside Sherlock, his back likewise against the wall.

They didn't speak for several minutes. But Mycroft gradually leaned towards him until their shoulders were just touching, and as he kept his breathing deliberately slow, deep and steady, the rhythm of Sherlock's breaths began to synchronise with his. Mycroft used to do that for him when he was a child, agitated or upset over one thing or another – he'd sit beside him and steady his breathing this way, holding him too, if he wanted to be held (which he usually did, once he was calm).

Still without saying a word out loud, Mycroft now turned his head towards him and rested his forehead against the side of Sherlock's head. They stayed like that for another few minutes before Sherlock finally slipped his hand into Mycroft's and said softly but honestly: "I didn't think I would mind, but it seems I've just learnt that I really don't like seeing you with other people you have sex with."

"I didn't think you would mind either," Mycroft admitted. "But now that we both know you do, we should talk about this."

They kept their voices so low that John and Mrs Hudson wouldn't be able to make out the words even if they pressed their ears to the door.

"What's there to talk about?" Sherlock asked, in a near-whisper. "You and I can never be seen together in ways that you can be seen with Lady Smallwood and whomever else you fuck for diplomatic reasons, or in ways that I can be seen with John, or Molly, or anyone who sort of likes me. And for us to survive, I imagine that we _need_ to be regularly seen with other people. It's just that I didn't expect to dislike it this much."

Mycroft, as he'd done with Sherlock before, responded by coming at it from a tangent: "At the start of my career in Six, I had my share of missions in which seducing targets, or peripheral parties, was crucial if I had any intention of returning home alive. Although Uncle Rudy very quickly moved me into roles where I had more oversight, and though I've been in a position for many years now that no longer demands my participation in such active missions, I still occasionally face diplomatic – or even undercover – situations that go very much better if I convince certain parties that I find them nothing short of irresistible. I believe you know this. But you may have forgotten, since we grew closer, that it is very much a fact of my life."

"Lady Smallwood's not a target, though. She's your ally. And what you have with her isn't just work or politics or even friendship. It's attraction as well."

"It is. Or more accurately, it _was_ ," Mycroft revealed.

Sherlock's heart beat a little faster.

"If you'd stayed for just five more minutes," Mycroft continued, "you would have seen Lady Smallwood's old flame, Alfred Carr, join us at the wine bar for the rest of the evening. They've just begun seeing each other. I wanted to meet him, because I do count Lady Smallwood as a friend now – I have, after all, learnt from my _favourite_ sibling how important having loyal friends can be."

"She was touching your _hand_. You didn't pull away."

"She used to touch a lot more than just my hand."

"I don't need any further help visualising that."

"My point is that when Lady Smallwood and I touch each other's hands, it amounts to nothing in terms of romance or sex. We're both rather… detached… individuals. We don't make friends easily. So I'm one of the very few people she feels she can make any physical contact with. But that really is all there is to it."

Sherlock dipped his head and nestled it in the crook of Mycroft's neck and shoulder.

Mycroft added: "As for my other diplomatic liaisons – which, as I indicated, are luckily very few and far between these days – they're purely about work, survival and manipulation. I cannot at this stage of my life promise you that I'll be able to avoid them entirely. But I can promise that I'll do my utmost to keep them to a critical minimum."

"Tell me when they happen. I want to know."

"Are you certain?"

"Yes."

"Very well. Tell me, too, whenever _you_ need to seduce someone while you're on a case. I know that you get yourself into tricky circumstances sometimes – witness Magnussen's personal assistant, the lovely Janine…"

"We never actually went all the way."

"Still, you did _everything_ except taking that last step, didn't you?"

Sherlock lifted his head a little and nuzzled Mycroft's neck, murmuring: "That whole episode's in the past."

"So is the sexual aspect of my liaison with Lady Smallwood."

"Fine. But I hated it, you know, when I was leaving the bar and you didn't even look at me."

"Sherlock, I had to fight every last one of my instincts in order not to run after you, grab you, spin you around, push you against a wall, and hold you there until you believed that there was nothing going on between me and her," Mycroft admitted, with a note of pain in his voice that only Sherlock's ears could pick up.

"It would have been nice if you had."

"It would have been our ruin."

"The logical dimension of my brain knows that. The emotional dimension tells me that it would still have been nice."

"I've come after you now, haven't I?" Mycroft asked gently. "In my own way, in my own time, in a manner that won't allow the world to destroy us. This is my best public expression of running after you in the street."

"Always too lazy to do proper legwork, aren't you?" Sherlock made it both a grumbling and a teasing question.

"Guilty as charged," Mycroft confessed.

"You're really something, you know – flirting with Lestrade in the morning, holding hands with Lady Smallwood in the evening, and climbing into my bed at night. You should come with a warning label."

"I think we were both born with huge, detailed, highly complex warning labels that no one except ourselves knew how to read," Mycroft mused. "And _Lestrade_? Really? Was that a note of jealousy I heard in your voice this morning?"

Sherlock snorted. "Oh, please – Lestrade's straight as a stork and you know it."

"'Straight as a stork'?" Mycroft echoed disbelievingly. "What kind of an idiom is that, Sherlock Holmes?"

"If Armistead Maupin could repeatedly describe his characters as 'gay as a goose', I don't see why I can't call Lestrade 'straight as a stork'."

Mycroft laughed soundlessly into Sherlock's hair. "Good heavens, you've actually read _Tales of the City_?"

Indignantly, but still very softly, Sherlock asked: "Why the hell does everyone express surprise that I've read one thing or another? Do I seem _illiterate_? John almost wet himself laughing when I quoted something from _Pride and Prejudice_."

This time, a small sound of laughter did escape from Mycroft's throat. " _Pride and Prejudice_? Honestly, Sherlock?"

"Oh, shut up. Austen's a hilarious writer."

"She is, but really? You? _Pride and Prejudice_?"

"Shut _up_."

"All right, I'm sorry. It shouldn't be surprising. You used to read a lot, though I think you forgot a great deal of it, along with the workings of our solar system, a raft of prime ministers, and half your childhood."

"And all that you meant to me. I never want to lose you again."

"You never did. Maybe you thought you'd lost me, just as I knew I'd lost you. But I was always here for you, Sherlock."

"Don't run off with Lady Smallwood."

"Don't run off with John."

"I think we have an agreement."

"At least we've finally had a major part of the talk we never really got around to having," Mycroft sighed. "We know what our boundaries are now."

"I'll hold you to them."

"Likewise. Do you want to come back to my place tonight?"

"Better not. We can't live in each other's pockets, right?"

"Not yet. But we'll find a way in the years to come. I promise you that."

"I'll hold you to that too."

"I'd be pleased to be held to it," Mycroft said, before he tilted Sherlock's face up and kissed him long and deeply. When they finally broke apart, trying to keep their breathing under control so no one would hear them, Mycroft added: "I _will_ be faithful to you, Sherlock, within the boundaries of what my work allows. I've loved you too long and too hopelessly to be careless with your love now."

"I'll try to remember that the next time you sleep with someone else," Sherlock said, not entirely able to keep the note of bitterness out of his voice.

"Sherlock…"

"All right, all right – I know," he sighed, forcing the logical dimensions of his brain to the fore. "We know what our jobs are like."

"I'll pick you up for dinner tomorrow – Marcini's?"

"Why not? It was kind of where we had our disastrous first date, wasn't it?"

"I believe it was."

"Go home, then."

"Goodnight, Sherlock. Sleep well."

One more kiss, then Mycroft was up, straightening his clothes, pulling on his shoes, picking up his umbrella, and stepping out of Sherlock's room. Sherlock saw him out of the flat – Mrs Hudson seemed to have gone to bed, and there was no sign of John when they left the room. But when Sherlock went back upstairs, John was there, standing by his armchair.

"John…" Sherlock began, sounding – and feeling – more uncertain than he liked.

John scrutinised Sherlock's face and looked intently into his eyes over the four-foot distance of floorboards and carpet that separated them. Then he spoke, very calmly, and in a very level voice: "I thought there was something odd about your behaviour at the wine bar – _more_ odd than usual for you, I mean. And it's only literally _just_ occurred to me what it was. What I saw in your face, in your eyes – it was jealousy. I didn't recognise it because it's been so long since I've seen it in you. But it was, wasn't it?"

"I don't think I should answer that."

"Fair enough. I can understand why. Then, let me try this approach: I'm not saying that anything I say is a reflection of any facts that may or may not exist, and I don't actually, at this point, want confirmation of whether they are or are not facts. Because I have a strong instinct that it's safer for me, and for you and Mycroft, that I shouldn't know. Plausible deniability… and what I don't know I can't be forced to admit to knowing… and all that. But I'm going to echo a few statements now from one of our earlier discussions."

"John…"

"That someone you mentioned to me before, who loved you in every possible way. That same someone to whom you meant the world. That person who loved you so much that you couldn't settle for anything less once you remembered how much he loved you… I only want to know _one_ thing: Did he initiate this when you were still a child? Or a young teenager?"

"God, _no_ ," Sherlock stated emphatically. "No, no, _no_. Not at all. _I_ initiated it when I was 17. He flatly rejected me. I promptly forgot. He never brought it up again. Then I remembered it all a few weeks ago, and I re-initiated contact on that level. It took a lot of persuasion, but he finally said yes."

"I see. I'm not going to say at present that it's necessarily all fine with me, but at least I know you were an adult when things developed, so I don't have to die hunting him down to try to kill him."

"John…"

"I won't judge you, Sherlock. Or him. You're both so… different… from everyone else that I suppose it makes a warped sort of sense. Just don't confirm the fact of his identity to me, and don't confirm the fact of… of anything I've said. I shouldn't know this, and for all intents and purposes, I _don't_ know this."

"Do you loathe me now?"

John looked straight at him. "Sherlock, _no_. I don't loathe you, and you haven't lost me. You couldn't lose me if you tried. I only wanted to know if you were abused or taken advantage of in some way as a child that was far worse than the way _I_ stupidly, regrettably, physically beat you up after… after you returned, and… and after Mary… I don't hate you, and I don't judge you, any more than you were compassionate enough not to hate or judge me. As I said, you're in a league of your own, the two of you. Who else would be more perfect for you?"

John turned to go back up to his room. Sherlock crossed the space between them, wrapped his arms around John from behind, and just held him. John seemed to understand everything he was trying to communicate, for he let himself be held, relaxed into Sherlock's embrace, and put his own hands over Sherlock's, gripping them firmly, reassuringly.

Then, having wordlessly said everything they needed to say to each other, they let each other go – John to his room and his child; Sherlock to his own room, and to fitful dreams of love, betrayal, trust, forgiveness, and the peculiar brand of fidelity that marked the faith between him and Mycroft.


	12. Acceptance

**Acceptance**

"Look at these lovely pictures, sweetie!" Mummy cooed to Rosie on her lap, trying to draw the baby's attention to the photos splashed alongside the newspaper article that she and Daddy were reading together on the sofa. "Such gorgeous gold jewellery and jade bangles – goodness, to think they were stolen years and years ago and hidden away from the world! Now they'll be returned to China where they came from – do you know where China is, Rosie darling?"

"It's exciting that you and Sherlock got to see them with your own eyes when you helped with the Yard's case," Daddy peered over the top of the broadsheet to address John, as Sherlock was ignoring his parents in favour of his violin.

"Yes, but we were really much more focused on, well, the specific aspect of the case that Mycroft and the CID requested our assistance with," John explained, appearing in the doorway to the kitchen, where he was heating up Rosie's lunch on the stove. "So we didn't pay much attention to the treasures in the safe."

"The specific aspect you can't tell us about because it's strictly classified," Mummy noted, as she guided Rosie's little hand to one of the most brightly coloured pictures, encouraging her to look at it. "Which is linked with this other story on the same page, giving us more information about those two batty women taking the Chinese ambassador hostage at the May Fair Hotel?"

"I gather that it also has to do with this sidebar about a new deputy being appointed to the Chinese embassy under Ambassador Luo Qifan. It doesn't mention the fate of the deputy's predecessor. Interesting," Daddy remarked.

"I'm afraid it _is_ all linked with the classified information," John replied before returning to the stove. "All I can say is that a puzzle urgently needed to be solved, and Sherlock pulled it off beautifully."

Testing his bow against the strings to see if he had rubbed enough rosin onto the horsehair, Sherlock toyed with a few musical phrases by the window while casually keeping an ear and half an eye on what was going on in the sitting room between his parents, John, and Rosie. The rest of his mind, however, was turning over last night's date with Mycroft, as well as reminding himself not to smile mawkishly for no good reason that he could possibly give Mummy and Daddy.

At first, it hadn't gone well. Despite the logical dimension of his brain believing it had accepted the less savoury facets of Mycroft's career, Sherlock was still smarting from what had happened in Soho and the hard truths they'd discussed afterwards. Mycroft too was tense and cautious, likewise not believing that one conversation could have straightened the whole problem out. So they'd struggled for what qualified as normality between them during the ride to the Chelsea restaurant and the initial part of their meal. Even that pale shadow of standard Holmes-brothers behaviour, however, deteriorated with the exchange resulting from their first proper sip of the wine Mycroft had selected to pair with their main courses.

 _"An excellent Barolo," Mycroft noted. "Possibly even more impressive than the one I tasted last evening."_

 _"More impressive in what way?" Sherlock asked, failing to prevent a shade of tension from stealing into his voice at the allusion to his brother's wine bar date._

 _"Well, it's richer. Last night's 2008 was of course brilliant, but this is more pleasing to my palate."_

 _"That's hardly an adequate critique, coming from you," Sherlock muttered. "You'd normally have trotted out half the adjectives in the wine dictionary by now."_

 _"Some things are subjective," Mycroft argued. "The 2008 was Alfred Carr's choice, and he regarded it as the best he'd ever had. Whereas Lady Smallwood and I had, separately, savoured others that we preferred."_

 _"What's he like, this old-new boyfriend of your girlfriend's?" Sherlock asked disinterestedly._

 _"Upright, kind, harmless," he answered, with the merest suggestion of a shrug. "Perhaps a little too cautious with Alicia, but he triggers no red flags. I honestly don't know that I'd be best placed to describe him, other than to say that he seems perfect for Alicia in many ways – he told her a joke that I could tell she genuinely found hilarious, although I fear I don't recall what it was."_

 _"'Alicia'?" Sherlock echoed. "You're using her pet name when you're with me?"_

 _"I'm sorry, Sherlock. It's just what I call her," Mycroft apologised, glancing around to make very certain that no people or cameras were in a position to overhear or see clearly enough to lip-read them. "I don't… it doesn't mean anything."_

 _"That's what you've been telling me since last night," Sherlock said a little snippily. "I get the message."_

 _"Perhaps the objective dimension of your brain gets the message, but do you accept what I'm saying, emotionally?" Mycroft asked with an edge of…well,_ something _creeping into his tone of voice although he spoke very softly. Sherlock thought it sounded like exasperation._

 _"Honestly? No," he replied frankly, feeling exasperated himself, but similarly keeping his voice down. "And that's just where_ she's _concerned. I don't think it's fully sunk in for me that even now – now that we actually have_ us _to think about – at some point, you'll be crawling into some diplomat's hotel-room bed halfway across Europe or wherever–"_

 _"Sherlock, please – it very rarely happens – in any case… for work… I don't do any of that for amusement. Not in the past, and certainly not now…"_

 _"You'd think someone as fucking brilliant as Mycroft Holmes would work out how to milk any bloody situation dry without having to resort to that primitive old tool of manipulative_ sex _," he hissed softly but viciously._

 _"Sherlock…"_

 _"I don't care if it rarely happens – each time it does, it's like you think you have to be some kind of damnable political_ prostitute _for this country…"_

 _"Sherlock!" Mycroft's voice was sharp despite barely registering on the decibel scale._

 _"… just selling yourself…" Sherlock ploughed on in a cutting whisper._

 _"Oh, you're one to talk," Mycroft snapped quietly. "I too could ask you just how many other people you offered to sell your body to for 70 quid just so you could buy another hit. Did you service half of London for drugs, or was_ I _the only lucky chap you tried to whore yourself out to?"_

 _Sherlock snatched his napkin off his lap. He was on the cusp of tossing it onto the tablecloth and storming out of the restaurant when myriad little observations he'd subconsciously registered earlier skittered across his mind, gathered themselves into a wave, and crashed into the objective half of his brain, sweeping away the miserable sandcastle of emotions he'd been unhappily building since last night. To cap it all, he saw a tiny, fleeting tremble of Mycroft's lower lip and instantly grasped everything behind that minuscule giveaway: not a tremble of anger, or resentment, or hatred, but a wobble of fear, misery, regret, and a belief that he had failed…_

 _Sherlock slowly sat back down, the napkin still balled up tightly in his hands. Staring at Mycroft's face, he unclasped his fists, smoothed the crumpled cloth over his lap again, and took a second to properly process everything this time, even as Mycroft gasped barely audibly: "Oh God, Sherlock, I'm sorry…"_

 _"Don't be," Sherlock said._

 _"I really am sorry…" He looked stricken._

 _"You were terrified last night, weren't you?" Sherlock ventured._

 _"What?" Mycroft, still off-centre, asked in response to the unexpected question._

 _"You've barely been able to answer my questions about Alfred Carr or what you drank after I left the bar last night. You've even forgotten what joke he told Lady Smallwood. Worrying about me distracted you so much that you could hardly spare enough of your fabled multitasking talent to focus on the lady's new man – at least not at your usual impeccable level."_

 _"I…"_

 _"You're_ slipping _, Mycroft," Sherlock said gently with a tentative smile, in a kinder echo of the aftermath of his rescue from Serbia._

 _"Oh, Sherlock," Mycroft breathed, closing his eyes for a moment._

 _"The idea of losing me terrifies you, and you were terrified last night. You've been afraid all day today as well, but you've been holding it together for my sake," Sherlock murmured, swiftly analysing the collection of observations that he hadn't processed fairly in the last 24 hours. "You were willing to risk losing me as long as it meant I'd be safe. You were nowhere near as calm as you seemed when I appeared at the bar or when you visited me afterwards – you really feared that I'd break up with you. But you forced yourself to stay cold as ice, because if you hadn't, it would have compromised my safety, as you sensibly explained last night. You'd risk an outcome that would make you miserable as long as you could keep me safe from the law, from our enemies, from societal condemnation, from ruin."_

 _"I…"_

 _"I'm right, aren't I?"_

 _"I… would risk… anything – absolutely_ anything _– to protect you," Mycroft confessed shakily._

 _"Even us. After all this time, just to protect me, you're still ready to destroy what you've wanted most for years."_

 _Finally steadying his voice, Mycroft said: "I'm no longer operating under my arrogant belief of the past that I was powerful enough to keep you from all harm. I know how vulnerable you are, even with my safeguards, and I will never knowingly do anything again to put you in danger that I can't extract you from. If I had not stayed where I was with Lady Smallwood last night, then calmly talked to you at your flat afterwards – I couldn't have saved you, because I would have been ruined alongside you, and I can't protect you if I'm lost too. So I had to, and yes, I would take the risk of driving you away, losing your love, as long as it meant you'd be well. But Sherlock – this is hurting you, and I didn't fully see last night how much it was hurting you. I don't want that. I'll find alternative ways on the diplomatic front – I'll get around these tangled political relationships I weave – it's not as if I'm getting any younger, anyway, and…"_

 _"No, Mycroft," Sherlock broke in at once. "Stop it. No. What was I thinking? For God's sake, you of all people know the best ways to survive these tangled webs of espionage and politics and diplomacy. So if you know that the best and quickest way in certain cases involves letting someone into your bed in some five-star hotel somewhere, then do it. I just want you to come home to me unharmed. That's what I care about – everything else fades into insignificance."_

 _"I'll work around it…"_

 _"No. I'll never be your weakness again, Mycroft. All my life, I've been the vulnerable point through which too many people have been able to attack you. Never again. Don't you dare compromise anything just for me. Do what you have to do to get things done with the best possible result. For me, the most important outcome would be that you come home to me as quickly as possible, in one piece. I get it now, objectively and emotionally, so don't give it another thought."_

 _"I'll… I'll try… but for now, please forgive me for what I said… before," Mycroft apologised again in a whisper._

 _"There's nothing to forgive. I think you have the right to know."_

 _"No, it isn't my right – what's past is past."_

 _"I want to tell you, Mycroft."_

 _"Sherlock, there's no need…"_

 _"You were the only one I ever offered to sell myself to. Later, at uni, and here and there, with people I met, we sometimes had sex just because it seemed like a good idea, but I never sold myself to anyone. You really were the only lucky chap I tried to whore myself out to," he revealed with a slightly awkward smile._

 _"Good Lord," Mycroft groaned softly, his cheeks reddening. "What did I do to deserve that dubious distinction?"_

 _Sherlock shrugged. "Must be because you were my first crush?"_

 _"_ Who on earth _offers to sell themselves to their_ first crush _?" Mycroft asked disbelievingly._

 _"It… seemed like a good idea at the time?" Sherlock bit his lips, embarrassed by the stupidity of his drug-addled teenage self._

 _"Heaven help us," Mycroft muttered, but a tiny smile played at the corners of his mouth, and the unhappiness dissipated._

From that point, the evening had gone smoothly. Although they couldn't reassure each other physically by holding hands or kissing in public, they'd stolen little touches – a foot pressed against another under the table, a finger lightly stroking the back of one hand behind the wine bottle, a whisper of skin against skin when Sherlock cut a sliver of his venison and put it on Mycroft's plate.

By the time they'd said goodbye to Dominic Marcini and left, they were desperate to get their hands on each other. With the privacy screen up, they'd fallen together in the car like teenagers feeling each other up in the back seat, manoeuvring carefully so they wouldn't rock the vehicle and make the driver wonder what was going on. Once inside Mycroft's house, they'd tumbled into bed and made love with a surprising amount of aggressiveness, then talked for hours with an equally surprising amount of snark-free gentleness towards each other.

Sherlock had left early in the morning, even before Mycroft got up to go work. He'd rung for a taxi, kissed a sleep-tousled Mycroft goodbye, slipped quietly into 221B, showered, dressed, and tinkered with an experiment involving a fabulously deformed lung Molly had sent his way. John, who had been up twice in the night to soothe his crying daughter, knew exactly what time Sherlock had come in. The doctor had looked somewhat uncomfortable for a second when they'd come face to face in the sitting room, but the discomfort evaporated once he patted Sherlock supportively on the arm and whispered over Rosie's sleepy head: "Tell me you didn't catch him on a date with someone else this time."

"No, it was just us."

"I'll punch him, you know, if he upsets you like that again."

Sherlock had chewed his lips to stop himself from grinning, but he'd dipped down to give John a peck on the cheek – which made John chuckle – and planted a kiss on the top of Rosie's downy head.

After breakfast, it was off to Waterloo station to meet Mummy and Daddy, and here they were now, asking him and John questions they couldn't answer about the case involving the Chinese ambassador and the treasure.

"Sherlock," Mummy was saying. "The hotel should be able to give us our room in about 15 minutes."

"Let's go, then," Sherlock said, putting his violin and bow down.

But just as Mummy and Daddy were handing Rosie back to John, a familiar step sounded on the stairs, its purposeful rhythm punctuated by the tap of an umbrella tip and the hurrying footsteps of Mrs Hudson a quarter of a flight behind.

"Oh Sherlock!" the landlady was calling out in her birdlike voice from halfway down. "Your brother's…"

By then, Mycroft had appeared on their floor and was walking into the sitting room with a mildly irritated expression on his face. "Sherlock, _why_ on earth have I just learnt that Mummy and Daddy are staying at a boutique hotel with the utterly inappropriate name of 'The Hospital Club' instead of at my house?"

"Well, they wanted to…"

"Myc, darling, it was _our_ decision," Mummy said, taking over the conversation – which she really needed to have with her eldest. She went up to Mycroft and drew him into a hug as she continued: "We're always imposing on you, and we've rather been taking you for granted of late – or I should say that _I've_ been taking you for granted. We know you're burdened with work, yet you're always taking the trouble to have us driven everywhere. Besides, the hotel looked lovely on the website, and it would be a nice change…"

Sherlock knew that Mycroft and Mummy had talked on the phone a few days ago. He knew Mummy had apologised for her unreasonable expectations with regard to Eurus. They'd made up. But this was the first time they'd seen each other in person after that day at The Diogenes Club that had left Mycroft so upset, and Mummy was still feeling guilty.

"It's completely unnecessary for you and Daddy to stay anywhere else when you're in London," Mycroft protested. "You know the house, you're comfortable in it, you were familiar with it long before I was for years before Uncle Rudy left to me, so it's the best place for–"

"It's good to change things up once in a while," Mummy smiled, her left hand still resting on Mycroft's right arm, and her right hand patting his cheek softly. "And you love having your own space, so when we're not there hounding you about one thing or another, asking you a hundred questions, isn't that good for you too?"

"What are parents for if not to harass and hound us?" Mycroft huffed, still annoyed. "I must insist that you cancel your room reservation and stay at my place."

"It's perfectly _fine_ ," Mummy assured him. "We're watching the musical with Sherlock this evening, and we're going home by train tomorrow morning. We won't be in your hair at all."

"You're only staying a night?" Mycroft asked. "I've arranged a visit to Sherrinford for tomorrow morning."

"Oh, Mycroft," Mummy breathed, pulling him into another hug. "We didn't want to ask this time – you never say a thing about it, but I know it's a hassle for you, and we imagine Eurus isn't exactly delighted by our visits either."

"It's not a _hassle_ , Mummy," Mycroft said softly. "She's all by herself there, so it's good for us to make regular visits."

"Myc, my love, I'm so sorry for what I said on my last visit," Mummy said with feeling. "I _do_ know that you've done more than anyone ever could for your sister. Sometimes I get emotional about her because I'm her _mother_ , and I still wish you'd told us about her once Rudy revealed the truth. After thinking it through, though, I can understand why he convinced you that telling us about her would only cause us more pain. Occasionally, the emotional side of me will wish that we could do more for her. But Myc, if it were _you_ in trouble, and I found out about it – though you _never_ tell me anything – I'd feel exactly the same, because you're my child too, darling."

Sherlock could see that Mrs Hudson, standing in the entryway to the flat with her hands clasped under her chin, was about to burst into tears of sentiment. To avert that catastrophe, he hastily steered her back downstairs and even made her a mug of tea before going back up to find his family in agreement that Mummy and Daddy would stay at the hotel tonight as planned. After visiting Eurus tomorrow, they'd stay a night at the house.

So Mycroft's car took them to the hotel to check in, and he had lunch with his parents. His driver-cum-bodyguard hovered near them as the café Mummy and Daddy chose wasn't a pre-approved location for him to safely spend time in. (Unlike Marcini's, which was frequented by peripheral royalty, high-ranking politicians and the most discreet celebrities, and was therefore a reasonably secure spot with its own safeguards.)

That evening, Sherlock, John, Mrs Hudson and Rosie had an early dinner with Mummy and Daddy in Covent Garden, after which Sherlock reluctantly accompanied his parents to the theatre, where he only just managed by the skin of his teeth not to utter out loud a string of insults against every act of the musical.

"Oh, stop fidgeting," Mummy scolded under her breath in the theatre, patting his knee. "You used to _love_ Abba songs when you were a child."

Sherlock nearly choked at that horrifying revelation, and was rendered even more speechless when Daddy leaned over and confirmed it with another whisper: "It's true – you did. You even used to dance to them."

He was in _hell_.

But if he was to be fair, other than the hellish, cheesy songs that his parents surely _had_ to be gaslighting him into believing he used to shake his "cute little bottom" to (Mummy's words, nightmare), the day was a good one, on balance.

It was the next morning that held real danger, when they visited Eurus. Sherlock played his violin as usual, but from the start, she kept breaking off her own playing and frustratedly dashing off bars that even their parents could tell were her demands for Sherlock to play "himself", and not notes that spoke of someone else.

Hell and damnation, but despite his attempts to keep John foremost in his mind, Eurus was starting to work out that the emotions he was channelling through his instrument were a cover. She argued with strong notes, and he played to her. She objected stridently to that too, and he tried to play for her again. She drew out a series of angry, agitated passages, and he tried again. Over and over, he attempted to convince her that he was expressing his soul, but she wouldn't believe him. His heart stuttered and sank when she lowered her violin, stared hard at him for a whole long minute, and then, without moving her head, turned a baleful gaze on Mycroft.

Sherlock froze, violin still pressed against his neck, bow immobile in the air. He didn't dare turn around to look at his brother. He couldn't. That would have ended them in an instant. Surely their brilliant, demented, terrifying sister hadn't pieced together that his heart belonged to their eldest brother… could she? She looked so _angry_. And _hurt_. And… helpless.

 _Helpless_?

Eurus' glare metamorphosed into an expression of bitterness, then neutrality, and finally resignation. When she slid her eyes back towards Sherlock, she didn't have to play a single note for him to read everything on her face, in her eyes, and in the merest twitches of her downturned mouth. She was communicating with him through something other than music, other than words, and he could understand the minute shifts of her body language perfectly: _"After all this time, you still adore him, brother?"_

Sherlock couldn't answer. He remained stock still, terrified that he had given Eurus, in all her incandescent genius and amoral viciousness, the _worst_ possible weapon against him and Mycroft.

He didn't need to answer, though. She knew, didn't she…? Did she?

Her expression turned shockingly sad as she lifted her violin and bow into position again, and drew out mournful strains that told him: _"I tried to tear you apart. I broke your bond when he failed to save your friend. Why should you have adored him so when I was ten times more brilliant? Still, you've overcome it. I could tear you apart once more. But won't you both only come back together again, stronger?"_

Sherlock finally unfroze, tilted his head to keep his instrument in place and held the bow poised over the strings without making a sound, thinking desperately hard with his head and his heart. At last, he had an answer for her that came at the problem from another angle, as Mycroft had so often taught him by example. He drew forth a low, steady, sober but broad sequence that told her: _"We are your brothers. Both of us, together, will always protect you. Together."_

Her reply of tremulous notes made their way to his senses: _"I tried to destroy you."_

His firm, tangential response: _"We will keep you together."_

Her warning: _"I will always be the scorpion who destroys that which tries to save me. It is my nature."_

His declaration: _"We are monsters, the three of us. Our poison only feeds one another."_

Eurus smiled at that – actually smiled – drawing a gasp from Mummy. She opened her mouth and spoke out loud for the first time in months, saying four simple but cryptic words that could be interpreted several ways: "Never let me go."

Sherlock, with equal ambiguity, replied: "Never."

"I can give you no recompense in this life," she said. "Perhaps in my next."

"Let's finish this one first," Sherlock told her.

Then, startlingly, Eurus spoke in – of all things – pitch-perfect Mandarin: "他是甘露之惠, 我并无此水可还. 他既下世为人,我也去下世为人,但把我一生所有的眼泪还他,也偿还的过他了."

With that, she set her violin and bow down in the receptacle through which items could be passed in and out of her cell, and turned her back to her family, dismissing them.

"What did you say, darling?" Mummy asked her, when she had recovered from her shock of hearing her speak. Eurus offered no response, so Mummy turned to her sons: "What did she say, Myc? Sherlock?"

Sherlock turned to Mycroft for the first time since Eurus had indicated that she knew what they were to each other. Mycroft looked pale, but Sherlock saw no fear in his eyes. Perhaps, just perhaps, she either hadn't seen the full nature of their bond, or if she had, she seemed to have decided to let them be. And those lines she had quoted, maybe, _just maybe_ , were the closest thing to an apology or expression of gratitude they would ever receive from her.

"Let's talk outside," Sherlock told his parents, as Mycroft nodded and ushered them out of the area beyond Eurus' cell.

Once they were in the office he used whenever he visited Sherrinford, Mycroft told his parents: "It was a quotation from the Chinese novel, _A Dream of Red Mansions_."

"Did she ever learn _Chinese_?" Daddy asked in astonishment.

"According to Uncle Rudy, when Eurus was still a child and they hoped that she might yet be rehabilitated, they continued her education in any subject she showed interest in – mathematics, physics, biology, the political sciences, philosophy, literature, languages, music – anything she was keen to learn. I have no doubt that she read important literary works in many foreign languages as well as in English, and she has evidently retained everything she learnt."

"But what did those words mean?" Mummy asked.

"In the novel, those lines are spoken by a being in the spiritual realm who began its existence as a plant," Sherlock took over the explanation. "The plant was diligently watered with dew by a heavenly attendant. The plant grew and was transformed into a girl. When the girl learnt that the attendant who had cared for her wished to enter the human world to experience life as a mortal, she chose to do the same so that she could repay him for his kindness. The lines she speaks essentially mean: 'He fed me with dew, but I have no water to give him in return. As he has gone down into the mortal world to become a human, I too will go down into the mortal world to become a human. Perhaps I can repay him with all the tears I can shed in the course of my life there.' In the novel, the girl was born in the human world as Lin Daiyu, who shed a lifetime of tears for the cousin she loved, Jia Baoyu, the human incarnation of the heavenly attendant."

"But what did Eurus mean by those lines?" Mummy asked despairingly.

Sherlock looked at their mother and said thoughtfully: "It's up to our individual interpretations. However, the essence of it seems to be that she can't do us any good in this life, but perhaps she can in her next. She was a little girl whom Mycroft and I turned into the East Wind. The East Wind turned into a monster. And the monster implies that in her next incarnation, she would like to repay the debt of tears she thinks she owes us."

Mummy began to cry, asking: "She's not telling us that she's going to _die_ , is she?"

"I doubt it," Mycroft said with an encouraging smile. "Your daughter is much tougher than she looks. We all are, Mummy."

Her face crumpled against Mycroft's jacket, but she also nodded in agreement as he put his arm around her and stoically allowed her to vent, in her tears, her confusion and mixed feelings: alarm over what might be ominous words from Eurus about her well-being; hope that her speaking at all might mean she could attain some stability; sadness that she was so far beyond their reach; and gladness that the words she had chosen hinted vaguely at a wish to repay the care her family had given her, even if she could never do so in this lifetime.

Once Daddy had calmed Mummy down, Mycroft asked the new Sherrinford governor to please walk his parents out to the helipad. He and Sherlock would follow in a minute.

"Of all the literary works in all the languages in the world, she chose to recite lines from a _Chinese_ novel, the same one Zhu Zheng made reference to on the gold bar. If there are no coincidences, that means she knows about the case and our involvement in it," Sherlock murmured to Mycroft urgently, once they were alone.

"Perhaps it is a rare coincidence – I don't know," Mycroft admitted in a whisper. "She's been allowed no access to news from the outside world since she was re-incarcerated, although a mind like Eurus' can put together a more complete picture from hearing scattered whispers than most other people can with access to full information. But more crucial than her knowledge of the Zhu Zheng case is what she knows about us. If she knows everything, does she plan to give us away? I've barely come to terms with what you told me last night about _John_ working it out by himself. Now, Eurus."

"I don't know if she will give us away," Sherlock said. "But what she's just communicated to us is as good an admission as you're ever going to get from her that she accepts you've defeated her. She hated how close I was to Victor, so she killed him. She hated how much I adored you, so she used her murder of Victor to double as the stroke that would sever our connection. But ultimately, she's failed, and she knows it. My instinct says she will let us be."

"If she changes her mind like the wind?"

"We'll overcome it together," Sherlock promised, giving Mycroft's hand a squeeze before they opened the office door. "We'll become Aeolus, who had the power to lock up the winds, and this time, my Odysseus won't have a foolish crew who lets the storm winds out of the bag and wrecks their own voyage – somehow, some way, we'll keep her from destroying us, and keep all our secrets under wraps."

Then, walking close enough to brush against each other, but not so close that it would raise questions in others' minds, they headed for the helipad to join their parents.

* * *

 **Notes:  
** The quotation in Mandarin that Eurus recites from Cao Xueqin's _A Dream of Red Mansions_ reads this way in hanyu pinyin: _"Ta shi gan lu zhi hui, wo bing wu ci shui ke huan. Ta ji xia shi wei ren, wo ye qu xia shi wei ren, dan ba wo yi sheng suo you de yen lei huan ta, ye chang huan de guo ta le."_

Once again, for reasons of unwieldy length (my bad), what ought to be one chapter needs to be split into two instalments. So this part is Sherlock's perspective, and the next will be Mycroft's, which will form the final chapter in this story.


	13. Home

**Warnings:** This chapter has fluff, a teaspoon of jealousy, scattered general silliness, lemon-flavoured paragraphs, more literature and… the end.

* * *

 **Home**

"Hello, Mummy," Mycroft answered the call as his car pulled up alongside the kerb in Baker Street a few days after the Sherrinford visit when Eurus had spoken for the first time in months.

"Are you still in London, Myc?" his mother asked. "What time are you setting off?"

"I've just arrived at Sherlock's flat. We'll leave in thirty minutes if he hasn't vanished on the trail of some case and forgotten that the rest of the world exists. If he's upstairs and ready to go, we should be with you in time for lunch."

They had decided to spend the weekend at their parents' home as Mummy and Daddy were still unsettled by Eurus' cryptic words from that day, and also to update them about her.

Mycroft's thorough investigations – roping in Sir Edwin and Lady Smallwood to verify that all was above board – had proven that the new Sherrinford governor and his team had followed every rule to the letter from the time of Eurus' re-incarceration. It meant that no one could have told her about the Chinese case, nor could she have overheard or seen anything that would have provided her with such information.

Mycroft's assessment: If her quoting from _A Dream of Red Mansions_ wasn't a lazy coincidence of the universe's, then Eurus must have been first exposed to details of the old Zhu Yu, Patterson and Mollard case in the years when Uncle Rudy was still trying to use her remarkable brain to obtain otherwise inaccessible insights into political and criminal cases. In more recent months, when she had left Sherrinford freely while the old governor was under her control, her extensive information-gathering resources might have provided her with updates about Mollard, Carter, Zhu Zheng and the people who feared the latter. She might have learnt details about Zhu Zheng that included his incestuous love for his sister, and the fact that he likened her to Lin Daiyu. For a woman who had been able to predict the dates of three terrorist attacks after a mere hour on Twitter, inferring the eventual outcome of the whole tangled web – and knowing that her brothers would work on the case – was not too great a step.

For now, that was the best conclusion Mycroft could offer, and it was accepted by Sir Edwin, Lady Smallwood and the prime minister as the most reasonable explanation. More importantly, Sherlock concurred. So it was time to see their parents and give them his assessment in person without revealing the classified political aspects of the matter. This weekend was a good time to do so, with Parliament in its autumn recess.

"Are you certain that John wouldn't like to come too?" Mummy was checking for the umpteenth time. "He and Rosie are _always_ welcome. If Sherlock regards him as family, then we do, too."

"Yes, Mummy, you _know_ he's staying put this time because the clinic needs him, and Dr Hooper is available this weekend to babysit. John promises that he and Rosamund will go down with us at Christmas, so you can coo and fuss over the baby all you want then."

"She's such a darling, Myc! So bright! I swear she understood most of that mathematical equation I was trying to teach her that morning. Oh, if only you or Sherlock would have little ones of your own, they'd be ever so brilliant – are you sure you're not seeing anyone you might possibly have children with…?"

Mycroft took a deep breath and closed his eyes as if he could block out all his bizarre family problems by shuttering his vision. As he slowly exhaled, he tried not to think about how it might _literally_ kill his mother and father to learn that their two sons were not only _not_ seeing anyone who was likely to gestate their spawn, but were instead seeing _each other_. "No, Mummy, I'm afraid I'm not engaging in procreational activities with anyone who's likely to bear me children, and I very much doubt that Sherlock is, either. You'll be the first to know if the situation changes. But we'll be seeing you in the flesh in two hours, provided we don't perish in a horrifying pile-up on the A3. We'll talk then, all right?"

Upon ringing the bell for Sherlock's flat and straightening the knocker, Mycroft was buzzed in. There was no sign of the landlady; she was out. Upstairs, John was trying to coax food into Rosamund while Sherlock, still in his sleepwear, appeared to be absent-mindedly packing an overnighter with one hand while holding a glass flask in the other.

"Sherlock," Mycroft sighed. "You're not even dressed! And why haven't you finished packing?"

"Almost there, Mycroft," he murmured inattentively as he swirled the semi-liquid/slime thing/world-ending toxic horror in the vessel. "Just making sure this isn't going to change colour or consistency any time soon…"

"If its colour or consistency becomes any more horrifying than that, it would grow teeth and tentacles and wipe all sentient life off the face of the earth," Mycroft remarked, staring with distaste at the substance, which looked like the illegitimate offspring of Ebola-contaminated vomit and mould-infested mud. "I hope you're not planning to leave it in the same fridge as whatever ingredients John has prepared for his poor innocent child's meals."

"Of _course_ not. I'm locking it in the temperature-controlled box in my room so Watson can't get to it. It should look really promising by the time I'm back."

" _What_ on earth is that horror, anyway?" Mycroft inquired.

"I'm cloning Philip Anderson for unethical experiments," he deadpanned, trotting off to his bedroom with it. When the sounds they heard from the room told them that he was starting to rummage through his drawers to grab things he needed for the weekend, Mycroft and John both yelled in alarm: "Sherlock! Wash your hands first!"

His impossible brother re-emerged with a protest ("My hands are clean! I didn't get a molecule of Anderson slime on them!"), but dutifully scrubbed his nails in the bathroom, anyway, before returning to his room for the items he needed.

"Still needs watching like a child," John remarked, half to himself, half to Mycroft.

"That he does."

"Been on any more dates with Lady Smallwood?" John asked with no further preamble.

"It wasn't a date you saw us on that night, John," Mycroft stated coolly.

"Oh, really?" the doctor said, with a tight smile and a note of faux brightness in his voice. "The body language suggested otherwise."

"We're very good friends."

"Ah."

Sherlock came back out in a navy-blue jacket and a lighter-blue shirt Mycroft had had tailored for him years ago. His dark grey trousers didn't match the jacket, but he looked casually delectable. Mycroft's eyes roamed over his body appreciatively, only for his brain to abruptly stumble over the surprisingly unnerving obstacle which was his suddenly noticing that John was clearly noticing his unbrotherly appraisal of his brother's beauty.

The doctor blinked at Mycroft for a couple of seconds, but said nothing. He only put Rosie's food down on the coffee table and settled her into her baby chair so he could say goodbye to his flatmate.

"Don't touch the experiment, and if you need to unlock my room door for any reason, for pity's sake, don't let Watson near the flask, or I won't take responsibility if she sprouts horns before I return," Sherlock told John. "And… oh! The milk – I've used up an awful lot more of it than I expected, but it expires tomorrow, anyway, so you'll have to buy another quart before I return."

"Yes, yes, I know," John sighed, handing him his overcoat. "You don't have to tell me – your milk-wasting misdeeds are always plain as day."

"Call me if an urgent case crops up," Sherlock said, reaching for his coat while Mycroft picked up his overnighter.

Before John released the coat entirely to his flatmate, he stepped into Sherlock's personal space, reached one hand round to the back of his neck, and drew him down to peck him on the corner of his mouth – an action that almost had Mycroft dropping his umbrella and Sherlock's overnighter.

"… have a good weekend with your family," was the tail end of what John was saying to Sherlock – the loud, alarming buzzing in Mycroft's head at the sight of him kissing Sherlock had drowned out anything else he might have said before that.

Worse, John lowered his hand to Sherlock's waist and kept it there as he walked him to the door of the flat. And Sherlock _wasn't objecting_.

"Text me if you need my help with anything," the doctor was saying now, hand moving to the small of Sherlock's back, triggering further alarming noises in Mycroft's head. "If minor cases come up, I'll handle the initial queries while you're gone. And Greg knows you'll be away this weekend, so don't even think about rushing back for work. Have a nice time with Mum and Dad, both of you. I'd like to cheesily tell you not to do anything I wouldn't, but I guess that's unlikely to go down well with you two right now."

"Bye, Watson, bye, John," Sherlock called over his shoulder as he scooped up his violin case and began to descend the stairs. "Come on, Mycroft! You're the one who's been chivvying me along – don't just stand there!"

Mycroft gave John a single stiff nod before following Sherlock down. The doctor didn't follow. He even closed the door to the flat proper, leaving the brothers alone in the stairwell.

At the foot of the stairs, before Sherlock could reach for the inside handle of the door to the street, Mycroft put the overnighter and his umbrella down and spun him around, forcing him back against the wall outside the landlady's rooms.

"What was that about?" Mycroft demanded softly but with a heated undertone.

"I take it you're referring to John's behaviour?" Sherlock asked calmly, hands full with his violin case and coat.

"Yes. Did you know beforehand that he was planning to use you to demonstrate his point to me about _body language_?"

" _No_ ," Sherlock replied, and Mycroft knew it was an honest answer.

"I didn't see you objecting," Mycroft noted. "Is this revenge for letting Lady Smallwood touch my hand that night?"

"No, Mycroft," Sherlock rolled his eyes. "I didn't know. John wasn't pleased to learn that you were still seeing other people after you and I got together, but I didn't know he was going to do that."

"You seemed very comfortable with his touches."

"I am. We touch. We're friends. I'm _mostly_ attracted to men, while he's apparently all right with the idea of being attracted to _some_ men, so we're both cool with pecking each other on the cheek, or him kissing my hand, or smacking me on the arse, or…"

Mycroft cut Sherlock off with a devouring kiss on the mouth that had not a little possessiveness in it.

"Mmmff… Mycroft," Sherlock gasped when they broke apart. "Now it's my turn to ask you what the hell this is about…"

"That's not work, not obligation, not diplomacy," Mycroft stated firmly. "Not like what I have to do even when I don't want to. How much touching will you allow before you stop him, Sherlock? What's the point at which a line gets crossed?"

"It's friendship, Mycroft," Sherlock insisted. "Like it is between you and Lady Smallwood. We're just the way we are. I have no intention of crossing any lines, and neither does John, just as I believe you when you say you don't plan to cross any more lines with your _Alicia_."

"Sherlock–"

"Nothing is going on between me and John. Not any more. As you said, he was making a point to _you_ , that's all."

Sherlock pushed away from the wall and Mycroft let him, watching as he pulled the door open and stalked out to the car. Mycroft straightened his jacket, picked up his brolly and Sherlock's bag, and joined him on the pavement. They looked up at the windows of 221B to see John, Rosie in his arms, holding one of the child's tiny hands in his and moving it back and forth, prompting her to wave goodbye to them. Sherlock waved back and Mycroft glared at the doctor as the driver put Sherlock's overnighter into the boot.

"Why do we need another car with us?" Sherlock asked, glancing at the second black sedan behind Mycroft's usual Jaguar as they slid into the back seat.

"So that we can have one bulletproof car at the house for our use in an emergency, and Andrew and Louis can keep the other with them. I'd like our family to have privacy this weekend, so my men will stay in a room over The King's Arms in the village high street instead of having to be put up in the house or freezing miserably in the car outside. I always have private security keeping a distant eye on Mummy and Daddy – they never intrude; I doubt Mummy knows they exist, although Father might. Anyway, we'll make do with them as a first line of security this weekend. In a crisis, they – or we – can summon Andrew and Louis, and they can drive up from the high street in minutes. By the way, did you know that Anthea regards your presence as a positive security factor for me?"

"Seriously?" Sherlock huffed in amusement.

"I suspect that she thinks of you as an unruly dog who may occasionally bite the hand that feeds him, but who'll defend that hand to the death if a threat looms."

Sherlock made a scoffing noise but looked pleased, too. Mycroft gathered that he'd had an inkling all along, as he surely knew that Anthea left Mycroft's visits to the Baker Street flat largely unmonitored, and they were never smothered by bodyguards when they went to their parents' together, or when he and Mycroft met up at suitably private restaurants.

"Does she also know that the hand that feeds the dog is likely to fling itself between the dog and danger? If she does, she might not feel so secure about the presence of the _cur_ ," Sherlock remarked as he buckled up.

"I have a feeling she knows very well that we'll protect each other. Also, she does not perceive you as a cur. More like a very badly behaved, spoilt and temperamental Saluki with none of the usual dignity of its breed."

As their cars pulled out and prepared to face the daunting London traffic, Mycroft put the privacy barrier up, and Sherlock tipped himself sideways to rest his head on his shoulder saying: "I don't mind us having the occasional spat – that's what we've done all our lives, isn't it? Argue with each other. As long as we can talk it out, it's fine with me. But I wasn't looking for a fight today. I really didn't know John would do that. It was just him being protective."

Mycroft sighed and rubbed his cheek against Sherlock's hair. "I know. I'm sorry for shoving you up against the wall like an ill-bred yob."

"Hmm, I dunno, I thought it was quite hot." There was definitely a smirk in his voice.

"Did you?" Mycroft asked with a smile, dropping a kiss on his curls.

"Yup," Sherlock answered, lifting his head to nuzzle Mycroft's neck. "I'm entirely neutral to John's touches now, but every time you touch me, it's searing. Like electricity."

"That's almost romantic, coming from you."

"What do you mean 'coming from me'?" Sherlock teased. "I can be bloody romantic."

" _Literally_ , yes – you've been known, at least in your youth, to think that showing someone an amputated foot was better than presenting them with a bouquet of roses, or the like. And God only knows how you wooed John with blood and abrasions, danger and hallucinogenic substances, insults and demands."

"He _liked_ it. Mostly. Sometimes. Once in a while."

Mycroft laughed softly and tipped Sherlock's face up for a gentle kiss. " _I'll_ take your version of romance with pleasure."

"Hmm… how much longer is this drive going to be?" Sherlock asked playfully, nipping Mycroft's chin.

"An hour and 20 minutes, if we ever get out of this snarl of London traffic."

"We could try for a lot more than just romance in an hour and 20 minutes."

"Tempting as that sounds, I can't have us leaving this car in an obscenely dishevelled, kiss-wrecked, orgasm-rumpled state," Mycroft said regretfully. "And once we're out of the city proper, I'd like to put the screen down so we can have a better view of the landscape."

"Boring. Too much greenery, too much open space," Sherlock grumbled.

"That's what makes Surrey prettier than London, don't you think?" Mycroft asked.

"No. All that breathing room. And the sheep poo. And the cows… just… no."

"Isn't all that part of the countryside's charm?"

"Has your tremendous brain forgotten that in our green and pleasant land, cows kill more people than dogs do?"

"Just steer clear of the bovines if they make you nervous," Mycroft suggested. "You'll appreciate the rest of the natural surroundings when you're older."

"Never."

"No, I think you will like the space and the greenery in your later years. We can retire to the country together."

"Nonsense. You'll never get London out of your blood. Neither will I."

"The city may feel too… frenetic, when one is elderly."

"Pffft."

"Very mature of you, Sherlock," Mycroft sighed, feeling tiny droplets of Sherlock's saliva flecking his jawline to accompany his juvenile expression of disagreement, although he shut up quickly enough when Sherlock proceeded to lick him clean…

However, they did succeed in keeping their hands and mouths mostly to themselves, so they were presentable when they reached their parents'. Andrew and Louis drove off in the other car, and Mycroft's Jaguar was parked at the back of the house.

" _Can_ you even drive that beast yourself?" Sherlock asked doubtfully as they walked round to the front of the house, glancing back at the Jaguar crouching silently on the gravel under the outdoor shelter covered in creepers that completely camouflaged the structure when viewed from the air.

"I do practise regularly so that I can get myself out of a pickle if my driver should be incapacitated," Mycroft revealed.

"I certainly hope so. I'll probably crash whatever I'm driving into a ditch within five minutes because I'll be speeding, as I'm supposedly _so_ irresponsible with machinery, Daddy's a bit too old to take the wheel safely if speed is of the essence, and we'll all die if Mummy's steering."

"What's that I hear about my steering?" Mummy asked, opening the door.

"Nothing!" Sherlock said quickly. "Hello, Mummy. Hello, Dad."

"Hello, you two," their father said pleasantly.

"Oh, Sherlock, you look so sharp!" Mummy cried in delight, admiring his jacket and silk shirt after kissing him and Mycroft in greeting. "Isn't this the jacket from one of those lovely, lovely suits Myc made for you years ago which you refused to wear? It was one of those you stored here with us forever, wasn't it, before you took them back after your Baker Street wardrobe was blown up?"

Mycroft turned to Sherlock and gave the jacket another once-over. "Is _that_ why the old suits I gave you survived when the flat was blown to bits?" he asked indignantly. "They're in such good shape because you were keeping them all _here_ , with Mummy and Daddy, using their home like _rental storage_ you didn't have to pay for!"

"Well, it's good that I did, isn't it?" Sherlock asked logically. "If I hadn't left them here, they'd have been shredded like most of my wardrobe, and my chest of drawers, and my bed – which I haven't replaced properly yet, by the way, I'm still sleeping on that uncomfortably narrow, rickety one I bought from the first furniture shop I passed…"

"I _did_ offer to help you purchase a bed similar to your previous one, and you said you couldn't be bothered to shop for one or even glance at an online catalogue," Mycroft pointed out in exasperation. "So _don't_ you start complaining about your rickety choice now…"

"Goodness, will the two of you _stop_?" Mummy chided, ushering them into the house and shooing them upstairs to put their overnighters and cases away. "Not even past the door and already squabbling away. You should be embarrassed – two great big grown men bickering like a pair of _kindergarteners_!"

"Old habits," their father mumbled, shaking his head. "But I have to say you two liven up every occasion, even if it's with objectionable behaviour."

"I think we can do with _less_ of that," Mummy sighed. "And are you implying that _I'm_ not lively enough for you, my lover…?"

Mycroft and Sherlock groaned in sync and fled upstairs before their parents started on a public display of affection.

When they deemed it safe, they joined their mother in the kitchen just as she was turning off the heat on the stove and in the oven, where the dishes were keeping warm. What she plated and ladled out, he and Sherlock carried into the dining room. Mycroft grumbled that they should just eat in the kitchen as they normally did so they wouldn't have to cart things about. Then, Sherlock grumbled that for today, Mummy should have called in the part-time help that she and Daddy had in a few times a week to clean the house, mow the grass, do the laundry, and cook the occasional meal. Mycroft went on to counter his brother's grumbling by reminding him that there was no point in arranging a _private_ family weekend if their parents were going to ask the part-time help to hover around the house all day just so they wouldn't have to carry plates of bacon soup and carrot-and-squash salad into the dining room.

The grumbling, sniping and parrying helped them maintain the façade of nothing having changed between them. Sherlock's fierce defence of Mycroft at The Diogenes Club had given their parents a hint that their younger son didn't regard their eldest with as much contempt as he once had, so they had to present all signs of the status quo being in place in order not to give Mummy and Daddy any more evidence of their closeness. However, he and Sherlock were such good actors that Mycroft felt mildly troubled about how _easy_ it seemed for them to go back to superficial hostilities.

This niggled at him all day, coupled with mental images of the physical intimacy between Sherlock and John. If it was such a breeze for them to act like this, perhaps it would also be all too easy for them to resume their former poor relationship in reality and turn to other people again. Distracting himself from that troubling thought took the form of concentrating on a text exchange with Anthea in between the hours when he needed to give Mummy and Daddy his attention.

Anthea was reporting on her progress in working out the details of what he'd asked her to re-examine a few days ago, and he did at least feel better with her assurance that so far, she saw nothing that would prevent them from setting out new guidelines for his work. He alternated his scrutiny of the proposals she had outlined with sitting and talking to his parents after lunch, at teatime and after dinner, about whatever was on their minds – repairs the house needed, village gossip, Eurus, what they would do for Christmas this year, their health…

Sherlock, on the other hand, draped himself over an armchair and dragged out a few vague tunes on his violin, dipping into the conversation only when his parents directed specific questions at him.

When they were done with after-dinner drinks, and Mummy and Daddy were winding down with a bit of television before bedtime, Mycroft announced that he needed to do some work. Sherlock had disappeared by then, first into the garden, and into the conservatory, then the bathroom, from the sound of it, and somewhere else after that.

The house, large as it was, no longer had a room set aside for use as either a library or study – after Sherlock had graduated from university and moved to London, Mummy and Daddy had not felt the need for a dedicated space for books, or for big desks at which large amounts of paperwork could be done. These items had been moved up into the two guest bedrooms on the top floor. Mycroft and Sherlock still had their own bedrooms on the first floor beside the master bedroom, but these were furnished for them to sleep and rest in when they came to stay, not for serious work.

So Mycroft took himself up to the second floor and opened his laptop on the biggest desk in the larger of the two rooms. He'd shed his tie and pocket watch at around teatime, but kept his waistcoat on out of habit. He was glad for the extra layer now, with this room being so chilly. He turned the radiator valve to its full extent to get the boiler water flowing fast, and once he felt warmer, he got a good quantity of work done. Parliament might be in recess, but he couldn't let his _other_ duties slide even on his weekend off.

About 90 minutes later, his father knocked on the door and poked his head into the room: "Your mother and I are going to bed. I'd tell you not to stay up too late, but that never did a bit of good when you were younger, so I won't delude myself into believing you'll heed my advice now. And while I would love to trot out the old line about how the world won't fall apart just because you're not working, in _your_ case, I'm not sure I can. So just try to get some rest when you feel able to, all right?"

"I'll try," Mycroft smiled. "Thank you for worrying about me even now that I feel and probably _look_ nearly as old as you are."

"You and Sherlock never did want much sleep, nor did you ever listen to anyone else," Daddy mused. "You two are like your grandmothers from both sides of the family. Those eccentric genes didn't even skip a generation – Rudy got a full blast of them. Hmm… do you know… you're quietly working away here while Sherlock's ensconced in the next room with his nose buried in a book, and as usual, he only grunted when I put my head round the door. It's like old times, except in different rooms!"

His father withdrew, closed the door, and went down to the master bedroom. Mycroft paused in his work and listened to the familiar old noises around the house – the creaking of floorboards, the surge of water through the pipes, the hum of the boiler system, twigs and leaves tapping against the windowpanes in the wind, the little skittering sounds that came from the slate roof right above him because bats were crawling over it and dislodging particles of soil and dirt, or a nocturnal bird of prey had paused there to readjust its grip on something wriggling in its talons. He'd become intimately familiar with all these sounds after the family had moved into this other ancestral property at the end of the 1980s, in the wake of Musgrave Hall's destruction by fire. He and Sherlock had scoured every inch of the grounds, usually separately, but sometimes together, if Sherlock wasn't being too distant or disdainful, or declaring that Mycroft was much too fat to make it through a hole in a hedge without bringing the entire hedge down.

Mostly, though, he'd listened for Sherlock. He'd kept an eye and an ear on him moving all over the property, and he'd instinctively done this for years until he'd left for varsity. A part of his mind and senses were always dedicated to tracking where the child was, what he was up to, whether he needed rescuing (though he'd never admit it), whether he was still blocking Eurus, Victor and Musgrave from his memory, and what mood he was in. It had always registered in some way, consciously or unconsciously.

Tonight, however, he hadn't noticed – until their father drew his attention to it – that Sherlock was in the next room, where most of the books were. Had he lost his sense for Sherlock's whereabouts over the years in London? Even now that they were back on familiar childhood territory, had he forgotten his instinctive sense of his brother's movements just because they'd spent the whole day acting in their parents' company as if they had no personal interest in each other?

Mycroft rose, picked up his laptop and phone, and crossed the landing to the other door. He hesitated to knock, turned away, but turned back and raised his hand again, at which point Sherlock intoned from within the room: "Oscillation on the landing always means there's a love affair."

"Does it?" Mycroft asked wryly after he'd turned the door handle and entered the second guest bedroom, which had three shelves of books lining one wall.

"In this case, it does," Sherlock murmured with a dry, crooked smile. "Of course, when it's Mummy oscillating on the landing, it usually means she's trying to recall if she's left the pudding burning merrily in the oven downstairs."

Mycroft quirked his lips in amusement and surveyed the picture before him. Sherlock was lying on top of the bedcover in his dressing gown and pyjamas, and he too had turned the heating to the maximum some time ago, so the room was warm. These upper rooms had been intolerably chilly in Mycroft's teenage years no matter how he fiddled with the radiators. But over the years, double glazing, better sealants, an upgraded boiler system, new layers of ceiling insulation and a small amount of interior remodelling had improved things.

He cast his eye over the small pile of books Sherlock had stacked up on the sheepskin rug beside the bed – an eclectic selection – before his eyes came to rest on the one Sherlock was holding open in his hands. With a start, he realised it was the old, fallen-apart-and-taped-together copy of John Ford's _'Tis Pity She's A Whore_ , which he'd left in this house along with many of the other literature textbooks he'd read for his A levels and at university. By then, he'd purchased a new copy that he'd taken with him to London.

" _This_ is the copy I so often saw you reading when you were home between school and varsity terms, isn't it?" Sherlock asked, holding it up. "This very one. Not the one in your London house."

"Well, as you can see, it fell apart, literally," Mycroft said, seating himself on the edge of the bed and placing his laptop and phone on the rug.

"A cautionary tale, you said."

"I chose to regard it as such."

"Rather beautiful language for a cautionary tale."

"Why are you reading it now?"

"It informed your approach to keeping your distance from me, presumably to save us from the characters' fate. Maybe it has some lessons to impart to me."

The emotion that surged up in Mycroft was that of dismay. He reached out and took the book from Sherlock, saying: "No – don't read this like I used to." He pressed the volume shut and set it down on the sheepskin rug, next to his laptop and phone.

"What do you mean?" Sherlock asked, surprised.

"If you want to go through it as a literary text, carry on. But don't read it like I did, warning myself off you, treating it as a manual of how not to fall in love with your sibling and have it all end in murder and death."

"It seems to have served you well," Sherlock observed.

"Maybe, but let's look for a happier story. Let's _make_ a better story."

"We still have to be practical and discreet, Mycroft. You know that better than I do."

"In terms of secrecy, yes, we must be practical to a certain degree," he agreed. "But let's aim higher than merely avoiding tragedy. I'd like us to be happier, Sherlock. I've been making arrangements with Anthea to establish new guidelines that will keep me out of the messiest diplomatic frontlines. There may be still be one or two occasions when I'll have to butter up an old flame to keep crucial ancient networks oiled, but that will almost never happen – maybe once in five years or thereabouts…"

"Mycroft, I told you to do what you need to do," Sherlock reminded him. "Don't damage your career on my account…"

"I'm not damaging it; I'm _managing_ it. I can be _very_ good at that too, in case you've forgotten."

Sherlock gave him an eye-roll paired with the comment: "Tell me what you're _not_ accursedly good at, besides legwork."

"Although you've assured me that you want me to do what needs to be done and then come home to you, I truly don't want to give you any more cause for unhappiness than is absolutely necessary," Mycroft went on, ignoring his brother's remark. "So for a few days now, Anthea's been looking at how practicable it would be for me to pull back from some engagements. It appears that it could work very well indeed."

"You'd do that for me?" Sherlock asked, shifting towards Mycroft to slide his head onto his lap.

"I would. I'll keep the unsavoury engagements at bay as far as I can, you'll try to keep future Janines at bay as far as you can, I'll try to curtail my unfounded jealousy of John's displays of affection, and you'll try to curtail your unfounded jealousy of Lady Smallwood's displays of affection," Mycroft said, looking down fondly at Sherlock's face and playing with his curls. "At the same time, we'll fine-tune our public coolness towards each other so it doesn't seep into our private interactions. I'd hate for us to get so into character when we act that it becomes hard for us to remember how close we really are when we're alone. It was challenging for me, today. I feared that you seemed distant. It felt as if we'd need an extended re-entry phase when we were on our own, but I don't want to draw the re-entry phase out, do you?"

"What re-entry phase?" Sherlock asked mischievously, sliding a hand all the way up Mycroft's thigh while he mouthed at his fly.

Mycroft drew in a sibilant breath and felt his cock leap in his trousers. "Perhaps it's not a good idea _here_ … if Mummy or Daddy get up to use the loo – which they do a distressing number of times each night at their age – they might hear something or check on our rooms and come upstairs…"

"What were you just saying about re-entry?" Sherlock's nuzzling against his groin was more insistent now.

"What were _you_ just saying about discretion?" Mycroft demanded.

"Lock the door, Mycroft."

"Not a good idea – Father said they were going to bed, but Mummy usually says goodnight herself unless she's exhausted. She hasn't come up yet, so–"

"So lock the door," Sherlock insisted. "It won't be our only warning. I've got another."

He opened a tab on his mobile phone which showed a live image of the only staircase leading up to this landing, and another tab showing an app receiving data from a device which Mycroft quickly worked out was a portable motion sensor.

"You've rigged up a motion sensor and a camera feed at this staircase?" Mycroft asked.

"Of course I have. Your post-dinner conversation was boring. And I knew you'd come up here after. Naturally, I didn't want us to be caught in a compromising position, and I fully intend for us to _be_ in a compromising position, so why wouldn't I set up a warning system?"

"You were waiting in here to get into a compromising position with me?" Mycroft sighed with resignation.

"Well, I wasn't waiting in here to get into a compromising position with _Daddy_ ," Sherlock breathed, putting a suggestively dirty emphasis on the last word.

" _Oh my God!_ " Mycroft yelped, leaping to his feet as an uncontrollable, visceral shudder ran through his entire frame. "Bloody hell! _What_ did I say previously about _never_ mentioning our blood relatives when we're… _ugh… honestly_ , Sherlock! I feel utterly _filthy_ now!"

Sherlock fell onto his back on the bed, laughing soundlessly and choking out: "If you could see the look of horror on your face…!"

"You are _appalling_!" Mycroft hissed, knowing he'd turned completely red.

A soft beeping noise sounded from Sherlock's phone, and he snatched it up at once to show Mycroft the live feed of their mother at the foot of the staircase. "Mummy incoming!"

"What? What?!" Mycroft panicked, oscillating in place.

"You really _do_ turn to jelly when it involves family, don't you, Mycie?" Sherlock stared at him curiously. "Mummy, Daddy, me, Eurus… we all just leave you flustered and wobbly."

"Shut up! What do we do?"

"Calm down. Open your laptop. Sit here at the edge of the bed. I'll sprawl on my back on the sheepskin like this. Go on, tap on your keys and furrow your brow. I'll just stare at my phone. See? All fine."

That very second, Mummy's knock sounded on the door.

"Come in!" Sherlock called, not moving from where he was, while Mycroft tapped at random keys and hoped he wasn't accidentally sending an SOS alert to Anthea.

Mummy popped her head round the door much as Daddy had, and smiled at the sight of her boys together. "I've come to say goodnight," she said, entering.

"We're discussing a classified case, Mummy," Sherlock droned in a bored voice. "And Mycroft is being _unbearably conservative_ in his approach. Will you tell him to loosen up a bit? It's fine to be _naughty_ sometimes."

"You two have to stop bickering over everything," Mummy sighed. "I won't linger as you're working, but try not to stay up too late, all right?"

She bent down and pecked each of them on the cheek, and Sherlock grumbled: "You know better than to bother to tell us that, Mummy – you know _perfectly_ well that you birthed vampires."

She shook her head and left the room, shutting the door behind her. Sherlock reopened the visual-feed tab on his phone, watched her go back down the stairs and disappear into the corridor, setting off the soft motion-sensor alert on his other app again. Then he sprang to his feet and locked the room door.

"There, all safe," he announced smugly.

"Hellfire and brimstone," Mycroft muttered, sagging over his laptop.

"Why let us render you so helpless this easily?" Sherlock asked. "Why can't you be as cold with us when you need to be, like with everyone else? You allow Eurus to terrify you, you give in to me all the time, you let Mummy get you upset… just because we share genetic material, it doesn't mean you can't be icy to us, you know."

"I told you caring wasn't an advantage, didn't I?" Mycroft murmured dolefully. "It really, really isn't."

Sherlock crouched in front of him, closed his laptop, put it on the rug, and took Mycroft's hands in his own. "Calm that great heart of yours. You didn't fool me for a second during that catastrophe at Sherrinford, you know, when you said your heart wouldn't make much of a target. I happen to believe that you have the biggest heart. Everything's fine now. Mummy and Daddy won't come up here again even if they get up to use the loo. In the unlikely event that they do, I have my warning system. So just breathe."

"What would I do without you?" Mycroft asked, not completely certain, even as he spoke, how much or how little irony he was putting into the question.

"Live a much less complicated life, that's for sure. Come on, shuffle over, lie down, compose yourself," Sherlock instructed, lying beside him. "Settle all that fluttering and talk to me."

"What do you want to talk about?" Mycroft inquired, lying back but careful to keep his feet over the edge of the mattress as he still had his shoes on and didn't want to dirty the bedcover.

"Tell me how it began."

"Hmm?"

"Tell me how and why you ever began loving me. It started here, didn't it, right in this very house?"

"I suppose it did."

"Well?"

"There's both nothing and everything to tell. How do I begin?" Mycroft murmured.

"You begin at a suitable beginning point, of course – what are you? Three? Still figuring out how to write an essay?"

Mycroft glared at him, then turned his head to stare at the ceiling for a while before finding a starting point: "When we came here, you were so psychologically fragile. You'd erased Eurus, Victor and Musgrave Hall. This house was always in our family, but it wasn't habitable at the time, so we moved temporarily into one of Uncle Rudy's London flats while the house was made fit for living in. But by the time we came here, your memory had decided to tell you that we'd always lived in London but were now moving to the countryside. I was constantly worried about what you would or wouldn't remember, whether you might recall something that would devastate you. I watched you and quietly fretted over you. By then, you were already distant to me, and downright horrible most of the time…"

"I'm sorry, Mycie."

"Don't be. I was terribly immature too. I'm sure I lost my patience with you countless times. Mostly, though, I worried about you and cared for you and loved you to bits. Your brain had decided to save you from the pain you felt by forgetting, but you couldn't seem to forget that I had failed you, although you didn't remember that the reason I'd failed you was my inability to save Victor. Anyway, even though you were rude and unpleasant to me every day, do you know, Sherlock, that you were still the most beautiful thing in my life?"

Sherlock buried his face in Mycroft's neck and went very quiet.

Mycroft hugged him close and went on: "You were, you know. You were my only light sometimes, on the darkest days when Mummy couldn't stop crying and Daddy was helpless, and they both sank deeper into misery when Uncle Rudy told them Eurus had died in the fire she'd started at the institution she was in. I watched you as if you were my only source of sunlight. All those years, you were the only one who could understand me, who could keep up with me, who grasped everything my brain could grasp when even Mummy in all her genius couldn't – Mummy was a specialist, but we were generalists, the two of us – Renaissance children. What I used to say to you about how I was the bright one and you were the idiot until we met other children – it was all to cover the numerous truths I had to conceal – the fact that we had _already_ met other children long ago, like Victor, and that we'd had a younger sister. You _weren't_ the stupid one; you were in fact the only one who truly understood me without twisting my thoughts into horrifying things, like Eurus did. Then when I came home from varsity that summer when you were thirteen, you'd grown so, and I could see in your features and build just how you would look when you became an adult. I'd spent so many years watching you that I couldn't look away then, and you seared my soul in ways you never had because you were the same, yet different, and by God, I _wanted_ you and _loved_ you and _yearned_ for you, but I couldn't. It was wrong, and you were so much younger that it would have been predatory of me to even breathe a hint of it. Besides, you loathed me still, and I didn't want to disgust you and drive you further away from me."

"And then I went a drove a blade through your heart by offering you sex for money."

"Shh, that's past. You were barely responsible for your words and actions at the time. That chapter is closed. But really, the story of how it began, well, that's all there is to tell. Everything and nothing, in so many ways."

Sherlock snuggled into Mycroft and shook his head. "It's not nothing. It's everything. I _do_ want to aim higher with you – I want us to make a happier story for ourselves. No more cautionary tales, no more tragedies."

"There'll be a lot we may say or do in public that we'll have to forgive each other for."

"Understood."

"And we'll have to become even less readable to others while becoming more readable to each other."

"Not impossible. If anyone can pull it off, we can."

"We'll have to trust each other completely."

"I've always trusted you."

"You didn't trust me enough to stay off the toxic cocktail of drugs before we put you on that plane to Serbia," Mycroft noted grimly. "Didn't you _know_ that no matter how coldly I appeared to be handling your case, I would have brought you back? I'd have secretly sent you the most competent help possible so you could finish your mission, then I'd have found you and brought you back."

"My brain was in a twist then. Too much time in solitary. Too deep a belief that John didn't need me any more now that he had Mary and their yet-unborn baby. Remembering how difficult it was for you to track me down the first time in Serbia… I didn't see a point in going sober and clean into that mission."

"You could have died from the drugs. You're always so certain that you know your limits and how to dance along that fine line between getting deliciously high and dying, but sometimes you _don't_ , Sherlock."

"I should have thought as much about you as I did about John and Mary then."

"I don't think you had a reason to, at the time."

"Mycroft, I can't promise I'll always and forever be clean. But I _do_ normally know my limits. And I haven't deliberately taken a thing since the Culverton Smith case. I don't plan to. I have a reason _not_ to, now. Also, we've both stopped smoking, I don't touch alcohol except when I have company… this is a good place to start, isn't it? You'll trust that I have every intention of staying clean, I'll trust that you want the best for me even if you seem overbearing at times, and we'll both trust that we won't cross emotional or sexual lines with others except in a life-or-death situation. Can that be the foundation on which we start building something with which we'll be happy?"

"Somehow, I thought the recipe for happiness would be far more complex than that."

"Even the most remarkable cake recipes may start out with a really basic sponge or biscuit base."

Mycroft angled his head to stare down at Sherlock's mop of curls. "What do _you_ know about cake recipes?"

"At one point I _might_ have considered baking a cake for you, but I realised that inadvertently poisoning you wouldn't be a good expression of my affection."

Mycroft laughed. "Was that why my team and I ended up stuffing our faces with a massive confection from Ottolenghi's instead?"

"Naturally," Sherlock murmured, looking up with a crooked grin that stole into Mycroft's heart just like every other smile his brother had ever freely given him.

He pulled him up for a kiss, and Sherlock eagerly plunged in, sprawling over him as if he thought he were still a child who could climb all over his big brother. Mycroft was pleased to allow him to set the pace, indulging Sherlock's impatience when he quickly turned the kiss into more, unbuttoning Mycroft's waistcoat and shirt and making his way down, caressing his body hair, lingering at the sensitive spots, making him moan when he laved his nipples with his tongue and dipped into his navel. His shirt tail was tugged loose and the front fully unbuttoned, then Sherlock was undoing his trousers, kissing him through his boxer shorts. When he hooked his fingers into the waistband, however, Mycroft put his hand over his.

"I haven't taken a shower yet," he warned. "Would you like to wait until after I've washed?"

In answer, Sherlock tweaked the waistband down, ran his tongue round the head of Mycroft's cock, drawing a helpless groan and a shiver from him. He looked up to say with another grin: "You taste perfect to me. _I'm_ not the hygiene freak here. And showering before would just be you wasting water, as we're both going to need to wash very thoroughly by the time we're done here."

"Oh…" Mycroft's voice felt choked off by his tightening throat.

"Despite what you say about my being an exception in everything for you, I've washed in anticipation of your finicky preferences, I'm clean, and I'm very ready for you – but I'm going to get you _really_ ready for me first," he purred.

With that, he pulled Mycroft's boxer shorts as far down as the undone trouser fly would allow him, and he took the length of him deep into his mouth, causing Mycroft to arch his back off the bed with a soft cry. He didn't, however, pleasure him in typical rhythmic fashion as he might have expected, but instead licked, laved, teased and occasionally moved his head up and down at the most maddeningly slow pace until Mycroft was hard as flint and nearly ready to beg.

"Sherlock!" he cried tightly, straining with frustration from the elusive sensuality.

"Ready for more?" Sherlock asked teasingly.

"Yes!" Mycroft snapped, tense.

"Take me over the desk, Mycroft."

" _What?_ " Mycroft asked, glancing at the solid piece of oak furniture across the room from the bed, which had very possibly stood in this house since it was first built – it looked that old. He'd spent many hours studying at it when it was in what used to be the study downstairs. "That desk? Now?"

"I don't see another one in this room. And of course now!"

"Why the desk?"

"Because it's _there_. I've been lying here all evening staring at it and thinking about it," Sherlock stated matter-of-factly before his voice dipped a little to add: "And you _must_ have thought about it whenever you were home from university or work and I was misbehaving, so let's do it."

Against the propriety of his loftier senses, Mycroft's cock rebelled, stiffening further at the mental image of Sherlock bent bare-arsed over his desk, open and willing. He struggled to be sensible, forcing out a logical protest: "You're not ready, we haven't…"

"What do you think I was doing in the bathroom after dinner, brother dear?" Sherlock asked playfully as he began to undress, completely dismantling Mycroft's objection.

"You were…?" he began, not knowing how to continue the question without sounding like an idiot, for he truly hadn't noticed this detail either – just how much had he missed along with Sherlock's whereabouts in the house after dinner?

Looking quite insufferably smug and cheeky as he disrobed entirely, Sherlock retrieved a toiletry pouch he'd jammed between the mattress and the wall and fished out a tube of lubricant, a few resealable freezer bags, surgical gloves, and half a roll of loo paper. He then reached back around to his own bottom with a gloved hand and, to Mycroft's surprise, carefully began to extract a silicone plug, slick with lubricant. He shook his head when his brother moved to help him, so Mycroft just watched as he completed the operation with a tiny grunt of effort, wiped the plug dry with some of the loo paper, and dropped the plug, the used paper and the glove into one of the freezer bags, which he promptly sealed and put back into the toiletry pouch.

"All ready for you," Sherlock leaned forward to whisper against his lips.

He picked up the lube and pulled Mycroft – still half-undressed – up and out of the bed, keeping his arms around him as if he thought he might dig his heels in and refuse to proceed, leading him to the desk in a strange kind of slow, persuasive dance, with Mycroft taking care not to tread on Sherlock's bare feet with his shoes. At the desk, he kissed him again to keep him in place before turning around and bending face down over the wood, gazing invitingly over one shoulder to give Mycroft the most tempting of come-hither looks across the pale, lean length of his back.

"Don't tell me you never thought about this," Sherlock prompted, placing the lube on the surface of the desk beside him. "Or about taking me over your knee when I'd been incorrigible, exposing my arse, just coming down hard on me…"

Mycroft stopped the stream of vocalised imagery by gripping Sherlock's hips and giving a sharp tug, positioning him properly, nudging his feet apart. "You'll be the death of me," he growled.

"But you'll die happy," Sherlock countered.

"This is your latest scheme to shorten my lifespan, isn't it?" he asked, uncapping the lube and slathering the product generously over his cock before pressing the tip against Sherlock's rear.

"Let's see which of us dies first."

" _La mort ou la petite mort?_ "

" _L'un ou l'autre._ "

"Are you sure?" Mycroft asked as he parted Sherlock's arse cheeks with his thumbs and thrust in. Sherlock gave a muffled cry against the top of the desk, but proved he had prepared himself well when he showed no signs of discomfort as he pushed back to meet Mycroft's thrusts. "I won't let you go first if it's one, but I'd be pleased to let you come first if it's the other."

"Are we going to play with words all through this?" Sherlock huffed, breathless from the arousal of being penetrated, turning back slightly to glance at Mycroft, showing a light, pretty flush over his left cheekbone.

"If you want to." Another thrust, eliciting another groan and push.

"Right now I'd prefer it if you'd just take me harder," Sherlock bit out.

Mycroft seized his hips in a near-bruising grip to keep him still and impaled him without holding back, forcing a loud, obscenely erotic moan from him. He lifted one hand to stroke Sherlock along his slender back, a gesture of command and reassurance, while inwardly, he lamented the faded scars marring the creamy flesh, silently noting how prominent the vertebrae looked and felt – he was too thin, he needed to eat better.

As Sherlock panted against the desk surface, Mycroft leaned forward and kissed him down his spine, gently, one vertebral protrusion at a time, before he couldn't go further without affecting the angle of his thrusts. Interestingly, he noted, Sherlock's excitement increased each time the fine wool of Mycroft's unzipped trousers brushed against his arse, and each time his unbuttoned waistcoat and shirt swept his hips or flanks. At once, he understood that this was part of Sherlock's fantasy of being taught a lesson at this desk after provoking Mycroft – in such a scenario he would have been ordered to strip, while Mycroft would have kept all his clothes on.

"Would you like it even better if I was also wearing my jacket?" Mycroft asked, dropping his voice, still caressing the creamy back before him.

Sherlock moaned again and shifted his hips, apparently trying to shuffle closer to the desk to get some friction against it for his neglected member.

"Oh, no, you're not doing that," Mycroft warned, pulling his brother's hips flush against his groin again, making him cry out, and nudging his feet further apart with the sides of his shoes. "You'll come when I allow you to."

Sherlock, gasping, pushed himself back against and over Mycroft's cock, wordlessly demanding more stimulation, more speed, more movement.

"Answer my question: Would you be even more aroused if I were wearing my jacket now?"

"Y-yes… _ohhh_ … _harder_ , Mycroft."

"But you _hate_ my suits," Mycroft pointed out, refusing to give in this time to Sherlock's demands. _Topping from the bottom, as always._

"No, I always thought you l-looked really hot in them," Sherlock stuttered breathlessly. "But of course I'd never let you guess that I thought so."

"Of course," Mycroft growled softly. "Of course you wouldn't."

He gave him what he wanted then, mercilessly leaving him not so much as a moment to catch his breath, ploughing him with hard, long strokes that drove all the way in while his hands kept his groin away from the side of the thick wooden desk. Only when Sherlock's cries – smothered against his forearms and the table surface – grew desperate did he reach down with his right hand to pay attention to his neglected cock.

"All right, you can come now," Mycroft grunted.

Timing it perfectly, they climaxed together, moving as one until they subsided into a heap of panting breath, heaving chests, sweaty limbs and rumpled bespoke tailoring draped over old English oak.

It took them a minute to gradually recover from their state of semi-consciousness, but when they did, they disentangled themselves from each other and the desk, staggered over to the bed, and collapsed on it. There they lay for a while – Mycroft on his back, Sherlock face down – until they could breathe noiselessly again. Mycroft tore a length off the loo roll and wiped himself while passing the roll to Sherlock to use before he ended up soiling the bedcover.

"No wet wipes, of course," Mycroft noted. "Because those…"

"… yeah, those don't flush," Sherlock finished his sentence.

"And we don't want to leave evidence lying in Mummy's waste bins."

"Absolutely," Sherlock muttered, hauling out a resealable bag for them to drop the tissue paper into. "Right. I'll go wipe up the mess I left under the desk. You shower in the bathroom downstairs. I'll use the one up here."

"All right."

They did what they needed to do, separately. They showered and got themselves clean, flushed away all the incriminating loo paper, thoroughly washed the silicone toy with soap, and zipped it up in the toiletry bag along with everything else non-flushable. After that, they returned to the upper room, locked the door again, and lay down together in their pyjamas and dressing gowns.

"Sleepy?" Sherlock asked Mycroft.

"Not in the least."

"Stay here with me a while more until we go back down to our bedrooms?"

"Of course."

"What's on your mind? You're thinking about something."

"Earlier today, on the phone, Mummy was asking me about grandchildren."

Sherlock choked on his saliva and coughed violently for a while before regaining control of his voice. " _Grandchildren?_ "

"We'll never be able to give her any. Not a single one of us."

"Because Eurus will be locked away for life, and we…"

"Even if one or both of us adopt children or find a surrogate mother, we could never safely raise a child, Sherlock. Because any child who lives with either of us or both of us…"

"… would very quickly work out what our true relationship is…" Sherlock realised.

"… and it would be terribly unfair to burden a child with keeping such a secret for us until you and I are both dead," Mycroft finished.

"So our family line ends with the three of us, unless you and I break up for good."

"I would never want to resort to that just to pass on our somewhat dubious genetic material," Mycroft murmured soberly. "Can you imagine, if we took the surrogacy route, and the children who resulted from that turned out to be like Eurus?"

"Or like me," Sherlock sighed. "I think I was born seeking one thing or another to be addicted to. You're the only one who might be able to safely reproduce."

"No. The genes that made me and you also made Eurus, and those genes are in each of us. Just because I appear to be better socialised than you and saner than Eurus, it doesn't necessarily mean that I don't have just as much potential for being completely batty deep down in my DNA."

"So that's it, then," Sherlock said.

"I believe it is."

"Well, then, if we may abandon our family's traditional beliefs of what happens to the soul when we die, and just run with Eurus' allusion to other lives to come, then in my next life, Mycroft, I'd willingly be the Annabella to your Giovanni, but we'd have a much happier ending – you wouldn't stab me in the belly to kill our unborn child or tear my heart out of my body. Or I'd willingly metamorphosise in my next incarnation into the Gilfaethwy to your Gwydion, and bear you a calf and a cub – and it would be no punishment for us then but a pleasure instead."

"That sounds like both a terrifying and enticing next life," Mycroft said thoughtfully.

"Whether we get to that next life or not, let's not waste our energy worrying about how we can't give our parents grandchildren in this life – we don't know what things are yet to come," Sherlock mused. "We can intelligently predict and extrapolate and follow events to their logical conclusion all we like, but we don't know for certain, do we? Who knows? I never for one second predicted that someone like John would come into my life, and now, look at us – after all the nightmares we've endured, he's still my best friend. And look at you and me – after everything that seemed impossible, we're here together. So let's wait and watch and seize our opportunities when they arise."

"You'd be a disaster as a political planner, but you're uplifting to listen to as a philosophical optimist," Mycroft commented.

"Horrors. No one's ever accused me of being an optimist."

"But you _are_. You throw yourself into life with all the fearlessness of someone who thinks he can't fail, while I stay in the shadows watching and manipulating because I know only too well how terribly people _can_ fail."

"Then you should keep a light rein on me, and I should drag you out into the sun kicking and screaming once in a while."

"Oh, horrors," Mycroft echoed Sherlock drolly.

"We'll give each other balance and keep hoping for the best. Honestly, you never know what the world will surprise us with – we might love each other openly someday, or even persuade someone to give us, ugh, _children_. You and I together like this were an impossibility, weren't we? But that impossibility has become real."

"Hmm, that reminds me…" Mycroft began, leaning over the edge of the bed to flip through the pile of books on the sheepskin rug. "There was _another_ literary work besides Ford's miserable tragedy that I often used as a reminder of how you and I could never be. I think it offers us a more hopeful recipe for happiness because it gives the reader space in which to manoeuvre so that he can see how an impossibility might be possible… ah, this anthology should have it… here we go – Andrew Marvell's poem, _The Definition of Love_."

Sherlock took the volume from him and looked at the words as Mycroft recited from memory:  
 _"My Love is of a birth as rare  
As 'tis for object strange and high:  
It was begotten by despair  
_ _Upon Impossibility._

 _Magnanimous Despair alone  
_ _Could show me so divine a thing,  
Where feeble Hope could ne'r have flown  
_ _But vainly flapt its Tinsel Wing._

 _And yet I quickly might arrive  
Where my extended Soul is fixt,  
_ _But Fate does Iron wedges drive,  
_ _And always crouds itself betwixt._

 _For Fate with jealous Eye does see  
_ _Two perfect Loves; nor lets them close:  
_ _Their union would her ruine be,  
_ _And her Tyrannick pow'r depose._

 _And therefore her Decrees of Steel  
Us as the distant Poles have plac'd,  
(Though Loves whole World on us doth wheel)  
Not by themselves to be embrac'd._

 _Unless the giddy Heaven fall,  
And Earth some new Convulsion tear;  
And, us to joyn, the World should all  
Be cramp'd into a Planisphere._

 _As Lines so Loves oblique may well  
Themselves in every Angle greet:  
But ours so truly Paralel,  
Though infinite can never meet._

 _Therefore the Love which us doth bind,  
But Fate so enviously debarrs,  
Is the Conjunction of the Mind,  
And Opposition of the Stars."_

"Where do you see the hopefulness in it?" Sherlock queried.

"The lines that describe how vastly impossible such a love is are the very same lines that show how that despairing love could become a reality."

"So… if heaven falls and Earth is torn…"

"Yes, Sherlock," Mycroft said, slipping an arm over him and turning towards him to nuzzle his cheek affectionately. "You're here with me, so heaven has fallen, Earth is rent, all the world has flattened itself into a single plane, and the parallel lines that we are have come together."

"I like that, Mycie. It puts a new perspective on 'Did the earth move for you?'."

Mycroft laughed, Sherlock chuckled, and they burrowed into each other's arms again, seeking each other's lips and warmth, in the place where the possibility of their impossible love had begun for them.

They had come home.

-END-

* * *

 **Text Notes:  
** 1\. Mycroft plays on Sherlock's mention of death by asking, in French, whether he means actual death ("la mort"), or the "little death" that people experience in orgasm ("la petite mort"). Sherlock's reply in French means: "One or the other".

2\. The poem Mycroft recites is _The Definition of Love_ , by the English metaphysical poet Andrew Marvell, who lived from 1621 to 1678.

 **Other Notes:**  
To everyone who's read this fanfic, thank you for staying with it to the end. I've enjoyed writing this and have loved exchanging views with those of you who've left comments. I appreciate all the time and thought that has gone into each comment you've given me. To the readers who've loved the story, thank you once more for sharing this rather wordy journey with me which at times may have referenced potentially off-putting amounts of British and world literature and mythology, as well as mind-numbing case-solving detail. To the readers who may not have liked the story so much, I thank you also for at least giving it a shot even if it wasn't ultimately to your taste :)

I've done my best to make this fanfic as consistent as possible with BBC _Sherlock_ canon from Series 1 to 4, but I can't promise that every detail is perfectly consistent with it. And I tried to keep my updates as prompt as possible at the start, one chapter every ten days or so, because I began this story during a bit of a lull at work. But several chapters in, real-life work got demanding, so I had to post new chapters at two-week intervals or thereabouts, and I thank you for your patience if you were among the readers who waited for updates!

Finally, of course, I don't own _Sherlock_ and am not profiting financially from this fanfic.


End file.
